When coal, oil and gas are depleted, what energy can we consume? How can we strike a balance between economic development and clean environment? How can we leave more resources, clean water and blue sky to the future generations? The answer is renewable energy.
Renewable energy has been favored by more and more countries around the world as it is renewable and eco-friendly. As the Paris Agreement enters into force, we have officially ushered in the era of renewable energy. China produces the largest amount of renewable energy around the globe, with its installed capacity for wind power, PV power ranking first in the world. Renewable energy has become a vital factor for a country to transform and secure its energy supply and tackle climate change.
Shanghai Electric has been constantly innovating and exploring more environmentally friendly, safer and more cost-effective technologies to develop renewable energy, thereby reducing the cost of power generation, improving energy efficiency, and developing its business in a green and eco-friendly manner. In the field of wind power, Shanghai Electric strives to be "one of the top three enterprises of onshore wind power and the top one enterprise of offshore wind power". It has been in a leading position in the domestic offshore wind power market as evidenced by the remarkable annual new installation and orders. In the field of biomass energy, Shanghai Electric generates renewable energy with straws, which is also an effective way to deal with agroforestry waste. In the field of solar thermal power, Shanghai Electric has been developing the world's largest photothermal project to date—Dubai 700MW CSP Project. It has signed a joint venture agreement with a world-leading CSP technology company, and co-funded an enterprise and a lab, which will focus on addressing any existing technical issues of CSP generation in a systematic manner in China.
Wind Power
As one of the most mature and less costly forms of renewable energy, wind power will be the backbone of the future revolution in energy. In 2017 in China, the new installed capacity of grid-connected wind power was 15.03 million kilowatts, which led to a total installed capacity of wind power of 164 million kilowatts (accounting for 9.2% of the total installed capacity); the annual wind power generated was 305.7 billion kilowatt hours, accounting for 4.8% of the total power generated. Wind power has become the third largest power supply source in China.
As an important renewable energy production group of Shanghai Electric, the Wind Power Group takes on the mission of "developing energy for the future" to promote the development of wind power and provide solutions that contribute to "clean water and blue sky" in China.
Provide full-life-cycle solutions for wind power development. Wind power generation involves complex systems. From anemometry to micro sitting in the early stage, from selection of equipment to design of wind farms, and from construction to operation and maintenance, how can we obtain economic, environmental and social benefits? In the past, wind power equipment manufacturers only needed to provide high-quality fans products, which is not enough to meet the demand for "qualitative leap" in the wind power industry. With high-quality fans products, the Wind Power Group provides full-life-cycle solutions that take into account wind resources, design of wind farms, power grid friendliness and eco-friendliness to better integrate wind power with the power grid and the environment and make it more competitive in the future.
Promote wind power as an inclusive energy source. Replacing fossil energy with renewable energy guarantees not only continual supply of energy but also eco-friendliness. However, as the environmental cost is not considered in most cases, connecting wind power to the grid is much more costly than connecting thermal power and other traditional energy sources, which is also why wind power is less competitive in the market. How to lower the cost and improve the efficiency and enhance the competitiveness of wind power in the market without relying on the support of government subsidies imposes a challenge on the industry. The Wind Power Group has been working on technical R&D to incorporate new technologies and concepts such as cloud computing, big data, the IoT and AI into wind power to reduce the cost, thus promoting the rapid connection of wind power to the grid at affordable prices for it to gain a foothold in the domestic market. In addition, as decentralized fan products featuring low wind speed emerge, wind power becomes available to more residents. The Wind Power Group has also been developing noise reduction and safety technologies that enable harmonious co-existence of human beings and the environment.
Solar Power
Undoubtedly, solar power is the most abundant renewable energy that can be developed on the earth.
As a forward-looking company, Shanghai Electric has been exploring and developing efficient and clean power generation technologies, and has had technologies related to tower-type CSP generation, which has laid a solid foundation for its entry into the industry. Relying on its forward deployment in the CSP industry and its own excellent platform and teams of professionals, Shanghai Electric worked with ACWA Power in April this year on the construction of the world's largest 700MW CSP generation project to date in Dubai as the project's general contractor, stepping into the field of the world's top-notch new energy equipment. The successful development of the project marks that the CSP generation technology enters into a new era of development. This is not only another milestone in the field of clean energy, but also a success achieved by Shanghai Electric as a representative of China's equipment manufacturing enterprises on the journeys of industrial transformation and upgrading driven by innovation, entry into overseas high-end markets, development of Chinese brands and practice of the Belt and Road initiative.
The site of the CSP project in Dubai covers a total area equivalent to 1,000 football fields. With a tower of about 260 meters high, the project adopts "tower + groove" CSP generation technologies. The heat storage time lasts up to 15 hours, and the total capacity for power generation is up to 700MW.
Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority said that, unlike general solar power stations, the CSP station is able to supply electricity 24/7. It is understood that the tower-type CSP station is generally composed of subsystems of concentrated heat collection, heat storage and heat transfer and power generation. Due to the addition of the heat storage subsystem, the power station enables continuous power generation without being impacted by the instable and intermittent solar energy, thus effectively prolonging its running time. In addition, the heat storage subsystem can also regulate power generation during low-load and high-load periods. For example, solar energy available in the morning can be stored and then released at nightfall when the power grid load increases. This is conducive to energy regulation in the power grid and lessens the impact of cloudy and rainy weather on the grid. Despite the low solar energy density, the large-area heliostat field in the tower-type CSP station boasts an efficiency of more than 60%, ensuring a photothermal conversion efficiency of over 45% and photoelectric conversion efficiency of more than 20%.
The CSP project has the advantage of uninterrupted power supply, which supports flexible adjustment to the power grids. In addition, the project is highly competitive in cost. In general, power generation with new energy is more expensive than that with conventional energy. However, the project in Dubai is able to generate power at the cost similar to the cost of power generation with natural gas. Therefore, it is not only environmentally friendly, but also cost-effective.
Fortune favors the prepared mind. Shanghai Electric has invested in the CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) thin-film cell technology of a German company, Manz, and has set up production lines in China, thereby enhancing its strength and profitability in the field of PV power generation. In the past June, Shanghai Electric acquired 51% of the shares in Jiangsu Zhongneng Silicon Industry Technology Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of GCL-Poly Company through cash and equity. This will greatly increase the market share and strength of the business of Shanghai Electric in the field of PV power generation.
The rise of Shanghai Electric shows the confidence and strength of China in the fields of CSP and turnkey projects.
Biomass Energy
The biomass power generation industry, a sunrise industry, will become a new growth point of China's social and economic development, and provide technical and material support for environmental protection and ecological development.
In early June, Shanghai Electric provided three reports on power generation with coal-fired biomass, coal-fired sludge and coal-fired waste technologies respectively, and held a face-to-face symposium involving experts on electrical technology in Shanghai for its users to learn about the advantages of the said technologies and discuss their prospects. Meanwhile, at the symposium, the company also followed up the users' needs and analyzed the trends in markets to optimize relevant technical routes in a timely manner, provide users with the best technical solutions, products and after-sales services.
China has been promoting the development of a resource-saving and eco-friendly society. Therefore, the comprehensive development and utilization of renewable energy has become a critical topic and direction of the strategic innovation, transformation and upgrading of energy systems, especially the coal-fired power system. According to reports, coal-fired biomass power generation is currently the most efficient and cleanest technical route for the use of biomass, as well as a key recommended one during the period of the 13th Five-Year Plan for power. The biomass/sludge/waste power generation technologies meet the demand for energy in the development of diverse, green and low-carbon economy and are of great significance in promoting the large-scale and efficient utilization of biomass/sludge/waste resources in China. Biomass fuel is renewable. Using biomass for power generation can make effective use of the biomass surrounding the thermal power plants, thus addressing such environmental issues as direct burning of biomass in the fields. Meanwhile, it is also of great significance for saving coal, refining China's energy structure, reducing the emissions of harmful gases and soot, making full use of local resources, and enhancing the economic benefits and survivability of enterprises.
The coal-fired biomass/sludge/waste power generation system solution developed independently by Shanghai Electric has passed the expert review organized by China Electric Power Planning & Engineering Institute. The experts agree that the technologies which are relatively mature have reasonable parameters and high efficiency of power generation and therefore, are suitable for wide application. As of the release of this report, Shanghai Electric had assisted a number of pilot power plants in completing the feasibility study of biomass/sludge/waste power generation.
The gasified biomass power generation solution of Shanghai Electric adopts the technologies of fluidized bed with positive pressure and fixed-bed gasification to realize biomass gasification by grade, gas waste heat recovery and cooling. The solution also meets the users' requirements for measuring the calorific value of gas, temperature, and flow. Additionally, fixed beds are used to control alkali metals in the coal-fired units and avoid fouling and slag-bonding in the units.
The dried and gasified sludge coal-fired power generation solution adopts the technical route of desiccation of sludge and gasification of fluidized bed with micro positive pressure to address such issues as large moisture content in wet sludge and instability caused by the fluctuating moisture content during the thermal treatment of the sludge. At the same time, with this technology, the potassium, sodium, chlorine and heavy metal elements contained in the sludge are intercepted on the gasification side, discharged as gasified slag and recovered and used as building materials, which contributes to addressing such issues as the water cooling walls of coal-fired units being corroded by corrosive elements and heavy metal elements, catalyst poisoning in the denitrification system and flue corrosion in the dust removal system.
The melted and gasified waste coal-fired power generation solution adopts a two-stage melting and gasification technology which can treat the waste with water content of 50% and above. The technology has three major advantages. First, the waste is dried indirectly, which prevents the instability caused by the difference in the quality of waste during the thermal treatment, and the low-grade steam produced by the coal-fired power plant is used as the heat source for drying to maximize the utilization of energy. Second, the remaining ash after cyclone ash removal is recovered and becomes glass slag in the furnace to be reduced and treated in a harmless way. Third, gasification is used to convert the chlorine elements in the waste into hydrogen chloride which is then removed to inhibit the generation of dioxin precursors and the dioxin emission in the process of waste incineration.
There is no field like energy being so closely related to climate change and the environment, and very few industries like energy being offered so many changes and opportunities. Renewable energy is an inexhaustible source of power for the development of Shanghai Electric. When it becomes the main form of energy, green water and blue sky will be better guaranteed in the future. Renewable energy is changing this era, and we are the initiators of and witnesses to such change. As Hegel puts it, "if a nation has someone who cares about the sky, the nation will have hope."
Shanghai PNS registry No. 31010102007087