15th Five-Year Plan Southern Power Grid Outlook

The "15th Five-Year Plan" period (2026-2030) is the first stage of achieving the second centenary goal and a crucial period for China to move towards basic modernization by 2035. Under the central government's development layout, China Southern Power Grid is accelerating the construction of a new power system. It is proactively carrying out preliminary planning for the "15th Five-Year Plan" of China Southern Power Grid, accelerating the construction and intelligent transformation of grid infrastructure, and promoting the construction of pumped storage projects. This has significance in promoting energy transition and sustainable development, fostering coordinated regional development, enhancing grid operational efficiency and intelligence, and driving technological innovation and industrial upgrading.

Main Goals for Achieving Grid Digitalization

China Southern Power Grid will accelerate the construction of key infrastructure for a digital grid and deepen the "two-化 synergy" strategy to support "two-type construction." China Southern Power Grid's goal is to fully achieve grid digitalization by 2025 and strive to become a leading enterprise in "two-化 synergy." Through this transformation, China Southern Power Grid will effectively support the access and integration of over 100 million kilowatts of new energy and promote the proportion of non-fossil energy power generation in the five southern provinces and autonomous regions to 55%, while increasing the proportion of electricity in terminal energy consumption to 35%. The implementation of these measures will strongly promote the accelerated achievement of the "dual carbon" goals in the five southern provinces and autonomous regions and the Hong Kong and Macao regions, demonstrating China Southern Power Grid's firm commitment and practical actions in sustainable development.

Implementation of 7 Major Tasks and 26 Key Measures

To ensure the achievement of its goals, Southern Power Grid has implemented a strategy that combines top-level design with focused breakthroughs. Starting from seven main aspects, it has formulated 26 specific key initiatives aimed at building a new power system by 2025 that initially possesses the basic characteristics of being "clean and low-carbon, safe and abundant, economical and efficient, coordinated between supply and demand, and flexible and intelligent."

1. Promote clean energy supply: By planning offshore wind power systems to fully utilize marine resources, injecting new momentum into the development of new energy; by advancing the flexibility transformation of planned coal-fired power in the region, actively developing the hydropower potential of the Yunnan region to optimize the energy structure and improve energy utilization efficiency; by importing clean electricity from outside the region to meet the growing energy demand.

2. Build key carriers for a digital power grid: Southern Power Grid will commence research on the "15th Five-Year Plan" for the power grid, aiming to construct a main grid framework that is "rationally zoned, flexibly interconnected, secure and controllable, and open for mutual benefit." It will also upgrade urban distribution network infrastructure, accelerate the pace of rural power grid transformation, and promote the full network application of cloud-edge integrated intelligent dispatch systems. At the same time, it will be committed to building an active coordinated control system that adapts to the source-grid-load-storage configuration to ensure the stable, efficient, and optimized operation of the power system.

3. Construct green interactive consumption models: With the continuous development of the new power system, the elasticity of electricity load will be enhanced on the load side, consumption side, and industrial side. On the load side, electricity demand response capabilities will be improved, and the construction of load management systems will be accelerated. On the consumption side, the scale of green electricity and green certificate trading will be expanded, and the electrification level of terminal energy consumption will be improved. On the industrial side, the market for corporate electricity-carbon coupling business services will be explored, energy efficiency improvement services will be expanded, and energy utilization efficiency will be increased.

4. Accelerate the coordinated development of diversified energy storage: By increasing investment in innovation in the field of new energy storage, and deepening the research and development of key technologies. By accelerating the construction progress of approved pumped-storage hydropower stations and planning the layout of new pumped-storage hydropower stations, to further enhance the grid's regulation capability and operational flexibility.

5. Improve the power market system and mechanisms: Firstly, deepen the price and cost recovery mechanisms, focusing on the capacity compensation mechanism for coal-fired units and the transmission price mechanism for electricity transmitted from west to east. Secondly, establish incentive and restraint mechanisms for green electricity consumption and a full lifecycle management mechanism for green certificates. Finally, promote the continuous settlement operation of the spot market, revise relevant detailed rules, and encourage emerging entities to participate in the auxiliary service market.

6. Strengthen technological innovation in equipment: On one hand, concentrate the best talent and resources to deepen research on the fundamental theories of new power systems, committed to improving the relevant technical spectrum and solving major fundamental theoretical challenges. On the other hand, comprehensively promote the standardization of new power system technologies. Strengthen strategic planning for disruptive technologies. At the same time, the company will also improve the standard system table for new power systems and formulate and implement a three-year action plan for standard compilation.

7. Strengthen point-to-area combined demonstration and leadership: First, deeply promote the construction of new power system demonstration zones, ensuring the basic completion of the first batch of 35 demonstration zones. Second, expand demonstration elements of new power systems by conducting in-depth research on the evolutionary trends of key elements and typical application scenarios. Third, build demonstration projects for new power systems.

"The 15th Five-Year Plan" preliminary planning of China Southern Power Grid focuses on multiple aspects, reflecting the development trends of China's energy and power industry in various directions such as energy transition, digital construction, and market mechanism improvement. It holds significant reference value for grasping the overall development direction of the industry. As a major security enabler in the energy and power field, Tiandi Hexing, with its deep technical accumulation and innovative practices, can ensure the safe and stable operation of the power grid, assist in the digital transformation of energy, and play an important and positive synergistic role in helping China's energy and power industry move to a new stage.