China Tries To Revive A Technology

China is trying to revive a controversial Soviet-era technology largely abandoned by the West as it struggles to overcome inefficiencies in its national power grid.

China's power distributors have been advocating development of an ultrahigh-voltage power grid that would transfer large volumes of electricity from remote inland regions rich in coal and hydropower to economic powerhouses along the coast.

State Grid Corp., the state-owned company that controls most of China's electricity grid, is overseeing a pilot project launched last year that will link parts of Shanxi province with Jingmen city in the central province of Hubei via a 1,000-kilovolt alternating-current transmission line.

The technology has plenty of critics. Ultrahigh-voltage AC technology has been out of favor elsewhere in the world since the Soviet Union fell and since power demand stagnated in Japan in the 1990s.

Even the Chinese government concedes it isn't yet commercial. But State Grid argues that the new technology, which would theoretically be more efficient because it would bypass existing provincial power lines by taking electricity directly from the source all the way to coastal provinces, is necessary to prevent damaging bottlenecks in China's aging power grid.

China has outshone countries such as India in connecting 99% of its population to the national electricity grid, but the risk of blackouts remains, the International Energy Agency recently warned.

The Paris-based watchdog said China needs to spend billions more to update its power grid. China needs to invest $1.51 trillion through 2030, with most of that coming from the Chinese central government, the IEA said in its latest World Energy Outlook.

If added to spending on generating capacity, the cumulative investment over the next two decades could reach $2.8 trillion, equivalent to a quarter of the world's total, the IEA said.

China's fast-growing economy is outstripping the country's ability to provide enough electricity to fuel growth, leading to bottlenecks and periodic power shortages.

Last year, China added more than 100 gigawatts of power-generating capacity -- equivalent to France's entire installed capacity.

But much of that new power is found in areas that have coal mines or hydroelectric dams and are far away fromthe coastal regions where most of the power-hungry factories and cities are located.

Getting the electricity from the power plants to the cities has been a major hurdle to China's growth. For example, two-thirds of China's hydropower capacity is concentrated in mountainous Tibet and the adjacent provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, according to State Grid, China's monopoly power distributor in all but five provinces.

'The operational stability of the companies in the sector requires more urgent measures to be taken to improve the grid connectivity,' said Ma Shang, an analyst at Fitch Ratings. 'Until that happens, there remains a risk of inefficient investments.'

为了克服国家电网的低效问题，中国正在考虑重新采用西方基本废弃不用的一项前苏联时代的技术。

中国的输变电企业一直在倡导开发特高压电网，这将能够从煤炭和水电资源丰富的偏远内陆地区向沿海经济发达地区传输大量电力。

控制中国大多数电网的国有国家电网公司(China State Grid Corp.)正在负责去年推出的一个试验项目。该项目将在山西和湖北荆门之间架设一条1,000千伏交流输电线路。

对这项技术持批评意见的大有人在。自上世纪90年代前苏联解体以及日本电力需求停滞不前以来，特高压交流技术在世界各地就受到了冷落。

甚至中国政府也承认尚未实现商业运营。但国家电网表示，这项新技术对防止中国电网老化而出现的损耗瓶颈是有必要的。从理论上讲，这项技术效率更高，因为它会绕过各省现有的电网，直接将电力从源头输送到沿海省份。

中国全国电网能为99%的人口提供电力，在这点上它令印度等国相形见绌。但国际能源署(International Energy Agency, 简称IEA)不久前警告说，中国供电中断的风险依然存在。

总部位于巴黎的IEA表示，中国还需要投入大量资金升级其电网。它在最新的《世界能源展望》(World Energy Outlook)中称，中国在2030年前需要投资1.51万亿美元，其中大多数资金将来自中央政府。

IEA表示，如果算上发电容量的支出，今后20年的总投资将会达到2.8万亿美元，相当于全球投资额的四分之一。

中国经济高速增长，也使得电力供应难以跟上其发展的步伐，这导致了电力瓶颈和周期性的电力短缺。

去年，中国新增装机容量超过1亿千瓦，相当于法国现有的全部装机容量。

但多数新增电力都位于拥有煤炭或水力大坝的边远地区，远离最需要电力的沿海工厂和城市。

将电力从发电厂输送到城市中一直是中国经济增长的主要障碍之一。比如，国家电网称，中国三分之二的水电装机容量都集中于西藏及邻近的四川和云南山区。国家电网垄断了中国除五个省以外的所有地区的电力供应。

惠誉国际评级(Fitch Ratings)分析师马尚说，该领域中企业的经营稳定，急需采取措施改善电网的传输效率。除非做到这点，否则就会存在投资效率低下的风险。

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