Recently, Zhang Xin, the representative of the 13th National People's Congress and the Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of TBEA Co., Ltd., introduced the response to the proposal and said, "The National Energy Administration attaches great importance to the development and utilization of energy resources in Xinjiang, and has given great attention and support in promoting the centralized base development of new energy in Xinjiang, accelerating the construction of power transmission channels in Xinjiang, and promoting the transformation and development of Xinjiang's power system."

In 2022, at the fifth session of the 13th National People's Congress, Zhang Xin submitted the proposal of "supporting Xinjiang to build a national new energy base, build more power transmission channels, expand local consumption, and build a new energy power system", which was highly valued by the relevant national departments, and the National Energy Administration responded quickly.

Xinjiang's resource endowment

As the core area of the the Belt and Road, Xinjiang has large reserves of energy resources, good development conditions and strong complementary advantages. It is the country's three bases and one channel. The total reserves of wind energy resources and total annual solar irradiance in Xinjiang rank second in the country, and the development potential and space of new energy industry are large. By the end of December 2022, the installed capacity of wind power, photovoltaic power generation and other new energy sources in Xinjiang Power Grid has reached 40.655 million kilowatts, accounting for 36.09% of the total installed capacity of Xinjiang Power Grid. The installed capacity ranks the top in the country and the first in the northwest.

In 2022, the power of new energy in the power transmission outside Xinjiang will reach 37.2 billion kWh, accounting for 30% of the power transmission outside Xinjiang. This is equivalent to nearly 1 kilowatt-hour of green electricity for every 3 kilowatt-hour of electricity sent by Xinjiang.

"In order to ensure the utilization of abundant new energy resources in Xinjiang and the completion of various new energy consumption tasks assigned by the state, it is urgent to rely on the comprehensive resources advantages of Xinjiang's scenery to accelerate the construction of Xinjiang's new energy base, increase the proportion of new energy electricity and assist in the construction of new power systems," Zhang Xin said.

National policy support

With regard to promoting the centralized and base development of new energy in Xinjiang, the National Energy Administration actively promoted the orderly development of new energy in Xinjiang in combination with the resource endowment, encouraged Xinjiang to explore and expand the local development and utilization mode of new energy in combination with the desert, Gobi, desert areas and other unused land resources, and actively promoted the construction of relevant projects.

At the same time, we should pay attention to the importance of the optimized combination development of coal power and new energy for promoting the clean and low-carbon transformation and new energy consumption of the coal power industry. The next step will be to give full play to the advantages of new energy and coal resources in Xinjiang. We will study and plan to build a comprehensive energy base based on large-scale wind power photovoltaic base, supported by clean, efficient and energy-saving coal power around it, and supported by stable, safe and reliable UHV transmission and transformation lines.

The National Energy Administration attaches great importance to the development of Xinjiang's power transmission planning, actively supports the Hami-Chongqing UHV DC transmission project to be included in the National Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for power development, and lists the fourth channel of Xinjiang's power transmission as a key transmission project for research and demonstration. At present, we are actively coordinating with grid enterprises to speed up the preliminary work and promote the project construction.

Significant economic benefits

It is not only the residents who use green power to benefit from the power transmission from Xinjiang. The investment in UHV and UHV power grids has significant medium and long-term economic benefits, and has the characteristics of long industrial chain and strong driving capacity. It can drive the transformation and upgrading of upstream and downstream industries such as power supply, electrical equipment, energy-consuming equipment, and plays an important role in stabilizing the economy, adjusting the structure, and benefiting the people's livelihood.

It is understood that the opening of the power transmission channel in Xinjiang has attracted dozens of large enterprises and groups such as Huaneng, Huadian and China Power Investment Corporation to develop power resources in Xinjiang. The installed capacity of Xinjiang power grid has increased from 14.05 million kilowatts in 2010 to 108 million kilowatts in 2021, which has become one of the main driving forces for the economic and social development of Xinjiang.

The construction of the four channels of power transmission in Xinjiang has directly driven the investment in power supply and other related industries to about 101.8 billion yuan, increased employment by 28000 jobs, increased GDP by 13 billion yuan and increased tax revenue by 2.4 billion yuan. It has also driven the development of Xinjiang's coal, coal power, wind power, photovoltaic development and equipment manufacturing and other related industrial chains, and realized the strengthening and extension of the industrial chain, effectively improving the output value of power transmission and transformation equipment manufacturing industry.

"For the power transmission end, Xinjiang power transmission has driven the rapid growth of the installed capacity of Xinjiang power grid and the intensive development of the energy base, promoting Xinjiang to transform its resource advantages into economic advantages. For the receiving end, these electric energy have effectively alleviated the contradiction between energy supply and demand in East China and other regions, effectively supported the power supply in the Middle East, and alleviated the reverse distribution of energy resources and power demand in China." Song Xueqiang, deputy director of the comprehensive department of Xinjiang Electric Power Trading Center Co., Ltd., said.Editor/Ma Xue