Recently, the 2018 Northwest Regional Energy Storage Application and Development Seminar was held in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. The reporter learned at the meeting that due to the substantial increase in my country's new energy installed capacity in recent years, higher requirements have been placed on the power system. As one of the effective solutions, energy storage has been greatly welcomed by the market and has a promising future.

"Energy storage has obvious advantages in ensuring grid security, optimizing equipment configuration, and improving grid efficiency. It not only provides development space for new energy consumption, but also has a profound impact on energy conservation and emission reduction. Energy storage and energy conversion equipment jointly establish a multi-energy The coupling relationship of the network provides a more convenient and effective method for energy structure adjustment," said Huang Shaozhong, director of the Northwest Supervision Bureau of the National Energy Administration.

It is understood that the northwest region is rich in natural resources such as scenery, and renewable energy is developing rapidly. As of the end of 2017, wind power installed capacity was 44.94 million kilowatts, accounting for 18.46%; photovoltaic installed capacity was 34.44 million kilowatts, accounting for 14.97%; the total installed capacity of the two accounted for close to 35% of the total installed capacity.

"At present, the installed power generation capacity in the northwest region has reached three times the maximum load. In addition, the intermittent and random nature of wind power and photovoltaic power makes local consumption difficult, and the power grid's transmission capacity, peak load regulation capacity and load demand are insufficient, resulting in the northwest power grid in recent years. The problem of wind and light abandonment is very serious. "Huang Shaozhong said, "Investing in energy storage systems can increase the peak load regulation capacity of the power grid and alleviate the congestion of transmission channels, and is expected to be an important way to solve the problem of new energy consumption in the northwest region."

Since energy storage does not have a dominant market position in China, the compensation mechanism is unclear, and dispatching experience is lacking, it is still in the early stages of industrialization and has not yet formed a mature business model, mainly focusing on functional demonstration projects. "Although companies such as Yellow River Hydropower, Huaneng, China Energy, and Mengshi Technology have launched or planned to build large-scale energy storage projects in Qinghai, Xinjiang, Gansu and other provinces and regions, the development of the northwest energy storage industry is still in its infancy," Huang Shaozhong told reporters.

In this regard, the Northwest Regulatory Bureau of the National Energy Administration put forward the development idea of "three encouragements and two improvements": encouraging new energy stations to build shared energy storage systems to provide solutions for new energy consumption; encouraging power grid companies to invest in storage energy, improve the power grid transmission and distribution capacity and safe and stable operation; encourage user-side energy storage investment and operation to protect the reasonable rights and interests of all parties; improve mechanisms and measures to promote independent energy storage to participate in the ancillary service market; improve price incentives to encourage energy storage applications and develop.

This will undoubtedly help companies develop and penetrate the energy storage market in the northwest region and explore feasible business models, of which LONGi is one.

According to Li Zhenguo, President of Longi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., photovoltaics and energy storage can now be combined in various forms to solve the problem of day and night intermittency of photovoltaic power generation. For example, in places with poor terrain, pumped storage power stations can be built to use photovoltaic power generation to pump water from low-level reservoirs to high-level reservoirs during the day, and release water to generate electricity at night to achieve continuous power supply. In addition, electric vehicles can also be used as energy storage carriers, using photovoltaic power generation to charge electric vehicles for daily use during the day, and then recycling the remaining electricity to the power grid at night for social use. Calculated based on one billion electric vehicles, 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity can be stored in a day, which can fully meet the global nighttime electricity demand. In the future, the Energy Internet can also be used to balance power supply and demand and realize power sharing.

"'100% renewable energy power generation' is the most effective way to achieve temperature control goals. With the rapid development of photovoltaic technology and the continuous decline of production costs, photovoltaic power generation will become the most economical power energy in most areas of the world. This determines 'Photovoltaic + energy storage' will become the main energy source within 10 years," Li Zhenguo said.

It is reported that new energy companies represented by LONGi, Yellow River Hydropower, Risheng Oriental, etc. are currently deploying energy storage business. Industry experts believe that my country will usher in large-scale development of the energy storage industry during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.

Zhang Xu, Market Supervision Department of the National Energy Administration, said that energy storage technology, as a new business format, new technology, and new model in the power system, can not only promote the safe and stable operation of the power system, but also promote economic development and create more jobs. "Therefore, I believe that starting from the construction of the power market, we should regulate appropriately, focus on encouragement, and actively and steadily achieve the sustainable development of the industry and technology through mechanisms and rules. In the next stage, we will increase power auxiliary services We will continue to work hard on the scope and intensity of management, and promote the gradual transition of compensation and mechanisms to market competition mechanisms.”