Exploring New Ways of Integrated Development of Water, Wind and Light

Above, the Yalong River Lianghekou Hydropower Station will benefit a number of downstream hydropower stations through compensatory adjustment during the peak summer period this year. Photo by Wang Xiaofeng (WI Visual)

The picture below shows Yalong River Kola PV power station sprinting to the target of commissioning and power generation. Jia Hong'en (Zhongjing Visual)

Compared with the "Shagoe Wasteland" wind and light base mainly relying on coal power as a regulating power source, the integration of water and wind and light is a cleaner way to develop renewable energy on a large scale. In June this year, the world's largest water and light complementary power station will be in the middle reaches of the Yalong River, which is rich in water and wind energy resources, and grid-connected power generation. How much comprehensive benefits can the integrated development of water, wind and light play? How to promote the scientific and orderly integration of water and wind construction? Reporters recently into the Yalong River Basin to find the answer.

New energy development and consumption of new solutions

At an altitude of 4,600 meters on the western Sichuan plateau, millions of photovoltaic panels meet the sun to send a dazzling light. In June this year, the photovoltaic power station located in Sichuan Province, Ganzi Prefecture, Yajiang County, Kerla Township, will be connected to the Yalong River not far from the two estuaries of the hydropower station through the transmission line to realize the photovoltaic and hydroelectric power "bundled" sent out for the first time in the world, "water and light complementary" project scale up to a million kilowatts. To million kilowatts level, to meet the growing demand for electricity.

"June to October this year is the peak summer critical period, if coupled with the upcoming commissioning of the Kerla photovoltaic, Lapashan wind power and other new energy power generation, innovative Yalong River two estuaries - Kerla water-optical complementary scheduling and operation, during the same period of power generation is expected to increase by another 900 million kilowatt-hours, the Yalong River Basin, the ability to protect the supply of clean power will be more than 50 billion kilowatt-hours. The clean power supply capacity of Yalong River Basin will exceed 50 billion kilowatt hours. This amount of electricity is enough for 16 million households to use throughout the year." In the face of the upcoming summer power peak, Wei Peng, deputy director of the centralized control center of State Investment Group Yalongjiang Company, looks more confident.

The advancement of water, wind and light integration construction is expected to further enhance the renewable energy supply capacity and energy green low-carbon transformation power. Wind power, photovoltaic rely on the sky to eat, with randomness, intermittency and volatility. Wind power is generally presented during the day small power, night power, winter, spring and fall power, summer power is small; photovoltaic power during the day night no power. New energy power generation large-scale access to the grid, will have an impact on grid security. Hydropower, especially with the annual regulation of large reservoir power station, through the optimization of scheduling and hydropower unit fast and flexible adjustment, can be random fluctuations in wind power, photovoltaic power generation adjusted to smooth, stable high-quality power supply, and effectively cracked the wind energy, solar energy development problems.

State Investment Group Yalong River Company two estuarine management bureau director Wang Jinguo introduction, take the Kola water-optical complementary project, two estuarine hydropower station hydroelectric generating units can be based on photovoltaic power plant power changes, real-time adjustments to the hydropower and photovoltaic power generation "bundled" together, the formation of a stable power access to the power grid. Two Hekou Hydropower Station has the largest reservoir in Sichuan Province, can be from the upper reaches of the water are present in the reservoir, want to send how much power to release how much water, to suppress fluctuations in power generation of photovoltaic power plant.

Hydropower like a strong lever, pry more new energy development. "General conventional hydropower can be supporting the development of new energy equivalent to one to one and a half times its own installed size, pumped storage can raise this value to three to four times." Guo Xuyuan, general manager of SIC Yalong River Company, said that the Yalong River main stream conventional hydropower technology can be developed with a capacity of about 30 million kilowatts, with a large total reservoir capacity, numerous pumped storage sites, excellent regulation performance, and abundant photovoltaic and wind power resources in the basin, which can form a total scale of more than 100 million kilowatts of water, wind and light complementary green and clean renewable energy demonstration base.

The integrated development of water, wind and light can also improve the utilization rate of existing transmission channels and promote the synchronous planning and construction of power grids. Zhou Yong, director of the Strategic Development Department of the State Investment Group Yalong River Company, said that the Yalong River Basin has been built hydropower projects supporting the construction of ultra-high voltage transmission channel, can be used to drive the spare capacity of the channel around the development of new energy sources, significantly improve the utilization rate of the transmission channel, reduce construction costs. At the same time, the base of new hydropower, pumped storage projects can promote the construction of new transmission channels, cracking the constraints of new energy development of wind and light send out the problem of consumption.

In April 2023, the National Energy Board issued the "2023 Energy Work Guidelines", which proposed to promote the integration of water and wind planning in major river basins, and to build demonstration bases for the integration of water and wind in the Yalong River, the upper reaches of the Jinsha River, and other river basins. Experts said that the development of Yalong River Basin wind and new energy in the best mode of social cost can better synergize the construction of network sources, realize the optimal scheduling of the whole basin water and wind integration, and provide reference, replicable and promotable experience for the development and construction of the integration of the country's major watersheds water and wind integration.

Prioritize the development of watersheds with suitable conditions

At present, the water-wind-solar integration demonstration base is still in the exploration stage. As early as 2015, the installed capacity of 850,000 kilowatts of Longyang.