The power plant is helpless: coal below the coal price will not buy coal above the electricity price.

With the ever-increasing contradiction between the price of coal and electricity and the shortage of transportation capacity, the power shortage in the central provinces will become more and more serious. This year's long-term losses in Hunan's thermal power companies have even indicated that electricity below the coal price will not be generated, and coal above the electricity price will not be purchased.

Status quo: The lack of electricity for the whole year is to bring the 18 military arts to battle.

Xie Chaoying, director of the Hunan Economic and Credit Commission, described the past as a "seasonal power shortage," and it is now "a year-long shortage of electricity," and the electricity off-season is still in short supply. Hunan's electricity load increases by more than 10% each year, among which the increase in electricity use by residents is up to 30%. In Hunan's power structure, the hydropower installed capacity is 13 million kilowatts and thermal power is 17 million kilowatts. From January to May this year, the number of water coming from Hunan was less than 50%, resulting in the inability of hydropower. On the one hand, some thermal power units have no opportunity to overhaul. So far, they have been risking safety risks; on the other hand, the consumption of coal has increased and some units have been shut down for a long period of time due to lack of coal. In the most intense electricity use in early May, the province's electricity demand was 16.5 million kilowatts, and the actual load was only 10 million kilowatts. On May 6, the electricity was limited by 30% on the same day, and the ratio of electricity restriction was the highest in the country.

As of the end of September, Hunan Province had only 1.2 million tons of coal inventories, which was far below the level of more than 3 million tons in previous years, and it also made ends meet. In order to transfer coal, Hunan's governments at all levels used administrative measures to allow coal mining companies to send coal to power plants, causing dissatisfaction among coal-producing regions governments and coal companies. Hunan is a province with low coal consumption, which consumes 38 million tons of electricity coal annually, 40% of which is supplied by provincial coal companies, 60% is transferred from other provinces, and 80% of electricity is purchased from Shanxi, Henan and Guizhou provinces. This year, these provinces themselves also lacked electricity, reducing or even cutting off the supply of electricity to Hunan.

In order to make up for the lack of land transportation and expand the sources of electric coal, from the second half of last year, Hunan began to diversify its coal from sea routes. The route was first transported from the port of Qinhuangdao by sea to the Yangtze River estuary, and the boat was transported to Dongting Lake against the Yangtze River. For smaller ships, the Xiangjiang River flows upwards, and is transported to the power plant by vehicles. The trip is more than 3,800 kilometers. When it arrives in Hunan, the coal price is as high as 1,200 yuan/ton, and the light freight accounts for two-thirds of the cost. In order to solve the energy problem, Hunan even buys coal from Russia, North Korea and other countries, and its transportation mileage is more than 4,000 kilometers. This scene was described by a coal-and-power-saving cadre: "The cloud and moon are eight thousand miles, and the sea is twenty-five days into the river."

Difficulties: Enterprises lack of electricity

The increasingly prominent electricity shortage has caused more and more concerns about the economic development of Hunan Province and the people’s production and life. Due to power constraints, the growth rate of Hunan's industry has dropped significantly. In recent years, the growth rate of large-scale industrial production in Hunan has been consistently ranked at 5-7. Since the beginning of this year, the industrial growth rate has declined month by month, and dropped to 15th after August. According to Ma Tianyi, investment section of Hunan Economic and Information Technology Commission, the lack of electricity has caused an extremely negative impact on investment in the central region, and investment in large-scale projects in Hunan Province has been significantly reduced. Many investors first learned about the power supply situation during the previous inspections. There has never been a case where projects under construction have faced strained power usage. Since this year, some project investors under construction have been extremely worried about whether electricity can be guaranteed after they are put into operation. For instance, the GAC Fiat project has already found the relevant departments to coordinate the use of electricity several times. Like leading companies such as Sany Heavy Industry and Zoomlion, this year, they all encountered power cuts. Regular power cuts have forced some enterprises to stop production and stop production frequently. Safety production problems, employment problems, and even trade disputes and lawsuits caused by failure to deliver on time have become so prominent that companies and local governments are now on a daily basis. A letter comes to coordinate the use of electricity.

Since the beginning of this year, due to long-term losses, Hunan's thermal power companies have proposed that “power below coal prices will not be generated by electricity and coal above the electricity price will not be purchased”. If coal is used to generate electricity, it will lose more than 6 cents per kilowatt hour. Although Hunan's on-grid tariff was raised by 2.39 cents on May 1 this year, and some preferential preferential tariffs were cancelled, thermal power companies could not reverse the loss, and power plants were increasingly reluctant to generate electricity. As the debt ratio of some thermal power plants is more than 100%, the banks have stopped credit, resulting in no money to buy coal. In August of this year, the deputy governor of Hunan Province presided over a meeting and called more than 10 banks and more than 10 power plants to carry out "bank-enterprise docking." However, due to risk considerations, banks have become more cautious in lending. Industry insiders worry that in the case of a slowdown in nuclear power, it will only be more and more difficult for Hunan to use electricity.

Way out: Subsidize the power plant's losses with the profits of the central enterprises

How to deal with the current urgent shortage of electricity? Xie Chaoying, director of Hunan Economic and Information Commission, proposed the following emergency measures:

The first is to resolve the plight of thermal power companies and mobilize their enthusiasm for generating electricity. It is recommended to use the profit of the central SOE to subsidize the loss of the state-owned power plant; to supplement the capital of the coal-fired power company, to reduce the asset-liability ratio, to facilitate the launch of bank credit funds, to solve the difficulty of the power plant to buy coal; to modify the assessment policy for state-owned power generation enterprises, in addition to assessing assets and liabilities Outside the rate, co-ordinate assessment of corporate social responsibilities undertaken to reduce the pressure on policy makers of power generation companies.

The second is to plan for a severe electricity shortage that may occur this winter. Apart from the shortage of coal and electricity in the traditional central region this year, even coal-rich provinces such as Guizhou and Shanxi have experienced insufficient load and power cuts. It is hoped that before the winter, the relevant departments will take effective measures to help the coal-mining provinces such as Hunan rush to transport electric coal, with an inventory of at least 3 million tons, and ensuring the use of coal for more than 20 days to be safe for winter.

In addition, in the long run, the relevant departments should make overall arrangements and strategic arrangements for energy development in the central region, and avoid long-distance transportation of coal for the purpose of solving energy problems, resulting in an embarrassing situation that consumes more energy. Ni Donghai and Jiang Ningfei of the Energy Management Office of the Hunan Economic and Information Commission said that in the past few years, the economic development in the central region has been rapid, but the supporting energy transmission channels have not been established, and the energy shortage has seriously hampered economic and social development. Regional coal transportation and transmission channel construction.