The Emergency Plan for Emergency Energy Supply in Sichuan Province (Trial) divides the emergency response into Grade I (particularly serious), Grade II (serious), Grade III (serious) and Grade IV (general), which are marked in turn as red, orange, yellow and blue. The Grade I response is an instruction issued by the national emergency command organization, which means that Sichuan Province has really reached a very serious level.
How much is Sichuan affected by the power shortage? Located in the southwest of China, Sichuan Province has the reputation of "the province of thousands of rivers" and is the largest hydropower province in China. It is understood that Sichuan and Yunnan, both in the southwest, have superior hydropower resources and their annual power generation exceeds that of the United States and Russia. Sichuan province, as an important transmission place of electricity from west to east, not only meets the power demand of this province, but also supplies electricity to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangxi, Chongqing, Shaanxi and other provinces and cities.
For so many years, Sichuan Province has been suffering silently. Even in this power crisis, it did not give up sending electricity to the outside world, but the power supply in Sichuan Province is really untenable, so these recipients bear the brunt.
After Sichuan province issued a power cut notice, Jiangsu province and Shanghai also issued power-saving notices; Secondly, as we all know, Sichuan is also a big industrial province, where there are many semiconductor and panel manufacturers, and Foxconn, Heshuo, Quanta, Inventec and other electronic assembly plants have set up factories in Sichuan. Now, Sichuan has announced that "all industrial electricity users (including white-listed key protected enterprises) will stop production (except for security load), take high-temperature leave and discharge to the people", which is the original power restriction period.
Three reasons led to the sudden power outage in Sichuan, a major hydropower province. Of course, the primary reason is the shortage of water resources. On August 7, Sichuan Province ushered in the once-in-60-year high temperature and dry weather. Under the oppression of extremely hot and dry weather, the reservoirs in Sichuan Province have decreased by 50%, and at the same time, the rainfall has also decreased by about 50%. According to statistics, about 15 area was seriously affected, and some important hydropower plants even dried up.
Secondly, the hydropower in Sichuan Province is uniformly allocated in the whole country, and the power it produces is not given priority in Sichuan, so the surplus power is sent out, and there is a certain proportion of allocation inside and outside the province, of which 40% of the hydropower must be sent out. By June, 2022, Sichuan Power Grid had delivered electricity to East China, Northwest China, North China, Central China, Chongqing and Tibet 1.35 trillion kWh, equivalent to 13 of the annual power generation of Three Gorges hydropower stations.
Finally, the problem of power grid transmission. Power dispatching has always been a key issue in China's power market reform. However, the existing transmission lines in Sichuan Province are different, which are basically full load or overload, which also leads to the inability to deliver electricity in time when the power is sufficient and the inability to alleviate it in time when the power is insufficient.
Energy security and new energy security are related to the national economy and people's livelihood, which has always been the key and difficult point that China needs to overcome. At the same time, in order to alleviate the pressure of traditional energy sources and reduce carbon emissions, China strongly supports clean energy sources such as new energy sources. However, due to the shortage of green electricity, hydropower generation in Sichuan province has led to the province's industrial power restriction, and residents have saved electricity. Has it also turned our attention to the safety of new energy sources?
New energy is sought after in the world because of its cleanness and renewability, and some countries even slogan to gradually replace traditional energy with new energy, but this is based on strong scientific and technological and energy strategic reserves. We should see the instability of hydropower, wind power and solar power generation. This time, when the rainy season came, Sichuan reduced traditional energy production ahead of schedule to make room for hydropower generation. However, "the weather is not beautiful", Sichuan suffered from extreme high temperature and drought once in 60 years, and hydropower production was reduced by 50%. However, the traditional energy did not make up for this power shortage in time, so there was a power outage storm in major hydropower provinces. Therefore, we should pay attention to energy security while using new energy, and we should not be too hasty and rely too much on new energy.
Before summing up, Sichuan Province silently undertook the heavy responsibility of supplying power to other provinces under the normal operation of hydropower. Now that Sichuan has encountered a power crisis, other provinces will definitely support it. On August 12, Bikou Hydropower Station in Gansu made every effort to help Sichuan Power Grid ensure power supply. In addition, 50 emergency generator cars of 13 provincial (municipal) power companies are arriving in Sichuan one after another to fully guarantee emergency power supply in Sichuan. I believe Sichuan will overcome this difficulty in a game of chess all over the country.