To build a new energy system, we must adhere to planning first

Energy security is an overall and strategic issue related to the country's economic and social development. It is crucial to the prosperity and development of the country, the improvement of people's lives, and the long-term stability of society. The world's century-old changes are accelerating, and factors such as the game between major powers, local conflicts and intensified turmoil are intertwined, and the world's energy development pattern has entered a period of deep adjustment.

Deeply understand the new situation emerging in international energy security. At present, the world's energy security is intertwined with traditional security and non-traditional security, and the international energy security situation is accelerating.

On the one hand, in the field of traditional energy security, factors such as changes in the supply and demand pattern of oil and natural gas, large fluctuations in international energy prices, and rapid growth in demand for new energy minerals have led to increased uncertainty in energy security. First, the world's oil and gas supply and demand pattern has undergone profound adjustments. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, the EU has taken the initiative to decouple from Russian energy, and Europe has switched to importing oil and gas from North America, the Middle East and other regions. The flow of Russian oil and gas export trade has shown a "eastward" trend; in the context of the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to spill over, the oil transportation channel in the Red Sea region faces threats from Houthi armed forces, posing huge risks to oil maritime transportation. In recent years, geopolitical conflicts have contributed to a significant increase in the uncertainty of global oil and gas international trade, putting significant pressure on my country's oil and natural gas import supply guarantee. Second, international energy prices fluctuate significantly. In April 2020, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, international crude oil futures prices fell to negative values for the first time. In February 2022, Russia's natural gas exports were subject to Western sanctions, international natural gas supply decreased, and natural gas prices rose sharply and fluctuated violently. At the same time,"OPEC +" has frequently implemented production reduction measures and extended the time limit for production reduction, adding unknown variables to the trend of international oil prices. Uncertainty in international energy prices has had an impact on my country's imported energy costs. From January to February 2022, my country's crude oil and natural gas imports both experienced a reduction in volume, of which a total of 85.138 million tons of crude oil were imported, with an amount of US$50.6734 billion. The import volume decreased by 4.9%, but the import value increased significantly by 43.0%. Natural gas imports totaled 19.858 million tons, with an amount of US$13.1987 billion. The import volume decreased by 3.8%, but the import price increased by 81.6%. Third, the demand for new energy minerals is increasing rapidly. In recent years, my country's "three new products" of new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products have developed vigorously. The International Energy Agency's "Global Electric Vehicle Outlook 2024" points out that global electric vehicle sales in 2023 will be close to 14 million, accounting for 18% of total vehicle sales. Among them, electric vehicles produced by China automakers account for more than half of global sales. The International Energy Agency's "Renewable Energy 2023" report pointed out that in 2023, the global new installed capacity of renewable energy will increase by 50% compared with the previous year, and solar photovoltaics will account for three-quarters. The installed capacity of solar photovoltaics in China is equivalent to the global installed capacity in 2022. The installed capacity of wind power increased by 66% year-on-year. It can be seen that in the future, the demand for nickel, manganese, lithium, cobalt and other minerals required for electric vehicle batteries, as well as copper, aluminum and other minerals required for power equipment, will increase significantly. However, due to resource endowments and other reasons, my country's external dependence on nickel, cobalt, chromium, hafnium and other minerals exceeds 90%, and its external dependence on manganese, beryllium, and zirconium exceeds 80%. As key minerals become "weapons" in the game between countries, the politicization of energy issues has become increasingly prominent, and the pressure on national energy security has increased.

On the other hand, in the field of non-traditional energy security, cyberattacks, extreme weather, and rapid development of new energy sources have posed increasing challenges to the stability of power systems. In recent years, cyber attacks against energy systems have become common, especially attacks such as chip implantation and remote control of electronic devices through the network, which have become major challenges to energy security. Climate change is gradually becoming prominent as a new risk affecting energy security. The current overall situation of global warming is becoming increasingly severe, and 2023 will become the hottest year on record in the world. Extreme weather and climate events are more frequent, challenging the stability and reliability of the energy system. In July 2024, Houston, the United States, was hit by Hurricane Beryl, and more than one million users were in power outages. The rapid development of new energy sources has brought significant security pressure to the power system. Distributed photovoltaics and wind turbines are increasingly widely distributed, and the growth of pulsed loads such as electric vehicle charging continues to increase. The power grid needs to meet instantaneous high load demands more frequently. It is more difficult to match source loads in the distribution network area in real time, which has brought new challenges to power dispatch and Stable operation of the power grid.

Under the new situation, my country's energy security needs to comply with new requirements. Next, to deepen the reform of the energy market system, we must not only adhere to systematic thinking and overall deployment, but also highlight key points and resolve major contradictions. The first is to properly handle the relationship between carbon emission reduction and security. In 2023, my country's coal consumption will account for 55.3% of energy consumption. On the premise that the coal-based energy consumption structure is unlikely to undergo fundamental changes in the short term, and coal power will still play a "bottom-up" role in ensuring my country's energy security, we must insist on establishing first and then destroying, strengthen clean and efficient use of coal, and accelerate planning. Build a new energy system. It is necessary to improve the green and low-carbon development mechanism, plan and build a new energy system, actively and steadily promote the "double carbon" work, and coordinate the new energy security strategy with the "double carbon" goal to achieve green and low-carbon development. The second is to build a new power system to ensure the safe operation of power. With the significant increase in installed capacity of photovoltaics and wind power and the large-scale production and use of electric vehicles, the volatility and intermittent nature of solar energy and wind power generation have led to an increased risk of reliable operation of electricity in large areas. At the same time, the operating mechanism of the power system has undergone profound changes, from "source follows load" to "source network load storage". The technical foundation of power balance has also undergone major changes, and the safe and stable operation of the power system is facing unprecedented challenges, highlighting the urgent requirements for the high-quality development of new power systems. In this regard, we must accelerate the construction of a new power system that is clean, low-carbon, safe and abundant, economical and efficient, coordinated between supply and demand, flexible and intelligent, so as to better promote the energy production and consumption revolution and ensure national energy security. The third is to promote the modernization of the national energy security system and capabilities. Today, global geopolitics, economy, science and technology, governance systems, etc. are undergoing profound changes, and the energy situation will become more complex. Energy security has become a priority concern for the development of major countries in the world. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China regards energy and resource security as an important part of promoting the modernization of the national security system and capabilities and resolutely safeguarding national security and social stability. To ensure national energy security, we must stand at the strategic and overall perspective, unswervingly implement the overall national security concept, and strengthen the supporting role of energy security.

Accelerate the planning and construction of new energy systems. Faced with new changes in the world's energy supply and demand pattern, new trends in international energy development, economic and social development, people's yearning for a better life, and the higher requirements put forward by the "double carbon" goal for high-level energy security, energy supply must be safe and reliable, green, low-carbon, and affordable. To solve this "impossible triangle" problem of security-green-economy, we fundamentally rely on building a new energy system. The new energy system is based on new energy, supplemented by clean and efficient use of traditional fossil energy, accelerates the green transformation of energy development methods, and uses energy consumption-side transformation, supply-side transformation, and technological revolution to drive industrial upgrading, institutional and mechanism transformation and strengthening. All-round international cooperation runs through a new energy system that runs through all aspects of energy production, processing, transformation, transmission and distribution, and utilization. At present, my country is in a critical period of transformation from a traditional energy system to a new energy system. It is necessary to further comprehensively deepen reforms to break down institutional and institutional obstacles in the energy field and provide strong energy support for China's modernization.

We will further promote energy conservation and low-carbon and accelerate the formation of new ways of energy consumption. Implement the basic national policy of giving priority to conservation, promote energy utilization efficiency in various fields to gradually reach the international advanced level, and promote the comprehensive energy efficiency level to gradually catch up with the average level of developed countries. Promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional energy industries, strengthen clean and efficient utilization of coal, and optimize natural gas terminal consumption. Accelerate the transformation of energy consumption methods, achieve continuous reduction in pollutant emissions across the entire industry chain of production, conversion, transmission and consumption, and a continuous reduction in carbon dioxide emission intensity. Promote the continuous emergence of new energy consumption models and new business formats, encourage the development of new consumptions such as aggregation operators, support energy consumers to gradually transform into producers and sellers, and allow consumers to freely choose and consume energy products independently.

Adhere to equal emphasis on safety and economic affordability, and accelerate the formation of a new energy supply structure. Accelerate the transformation of the energy supply structure and continuously enhance the resilience of the energy system to cope with major risk challenges such as extreme events, frequent extreme weather, and cyber attacks. Continue to optimize the energy supply structure, effectively guarantee traditional oil and gas imports and new energy mineral supply, and ensure energy security on a wider scale and at a higher level. While insisting on establishing first and then destroying, we will accelerate the development of renewable energy such as photovoltaics and wind power, actively and steadily develop nuclear power and hydropower, accelerate the deployment of the energy storage industry, increase efforts to promote the development of the hydrogen energy industry, and orderly increase the proportion of new energy in the energy supply system. Continue to promote cost reduction and efficiency improvement, stabilize terminal energy prices, and avoid excessive increases in energy costs.

Promote innovation in energy science and technology and accelerate the realization of new progress in science and technology. Promote high-level collaboration between traditional energy and new energy in the entire industrial chain of supply and use, achieve multi-energy complementarity, integration optimization, and coordinated operation of "source, network, load and storage", and the stable development of the energy production, supply, storage and marketing system. Accelerate the use of new technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and large models to transform the development, production, processing, conversion, transportation, distribution, storage, sales, and utilization of existing energy resources, and gradually form a smart energy system with digital intelligence functions, greatly enhancing the flexibility of multiple formats and scenarios such as distributed and centralized energy. In the direction of green and low-carbon, accelerate the promotion of scientific and technological innovation in energy transformation, focus on key energy areas and major needs, strengthen key common technologies and disruptive technological innovation, and closely integrate with high-tech in other fields to cultivate energy technology and related industries into a new growth point that drives my country's industrial upgrading.

Continue to deepen the reform of systems and mechanisms and accelerate the formation of new models of systems and mechanisms. Gradually build a complete "X+1+X" industrial system for natural gas and electricity, futures, spot and medium-and long-term market trading systems, and build a high-standard energy market system with unified openness, orderly competition, complete systems, and sound governance. Actively promote energy price reform and accelerate the establishment of a mechanism for forming energy prices for coal, oil, natural gas, electricity and other energy that fully reflects resource scarcity, supply and demand relationships, and environmental externalities. Further improve the scientific management and service level of energy, coordinate the promotion of energy management and supervision from various aspects such as planning, supervision, and services, strengthen planning guidance, improve the energy strategic planning system, and adapt to new requirements for the construction of new energy systems. Improve the legal system for energy transformation, promptly clean up and revise existing laws and regulations that are inconsistent and uncoordinated with the goals of green and low-carbon energy transformation, and continuously improve relevant laws and regulations, standard systems, and management policies in the energy industry to create stability for various entities. A fair, transparent and predictable development environment.

Further strengthen international cooperation and accelerate the creation of new heights of international cooperation. Promote the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" energy partnership with high quality, actively promote the implementation of international cooperation projects on clean energy, and strengthen the international connection and mutual recognition of green and low-carbon technologies and standard systems. Further strengthen bilateral and multilateral cooperation, and achieve international energy cooperation based on extensive consultation, joint contribution and sharing, so that national energy security can be effectively guaranteed. Deeply participate in global energy governance, continuously enhance China's voice in the field of global energy governance and climate governance, and become an active participant, contributor and leader in the global response to climate change and green and low-carbon transformation.