The wind blows on the seashore, and the sun shines on the Gobi Desert. From the sea breeze promenades on the eastern coast to the vast "sandy, Gobi, and barren" bases in the west, rows of wind turbines stand tall. Their huge blades rotate day and night in the wind. Arrays of solar photovoltaic panels glisten brightly under the sun... The energy of nature is being remeasured by modern energy units such as "kilowatts, megawatts, and gigawatts". There is a transition from a "high-carbon and extensive" model to a "smart and low-carbon" one, and the construction of a new type of power system is accelerating. Artificial intelligence is solving the problems of difficult prediction and poor stability in new energy power generation. Big data, satellites, drones, and ground robots provide a three-dimensional "sky-ground" guarantee for the safe and efficient operation of the power grid. The energy structure is becoming greener, and the foundation of national energy security is more stable.

Capturing Wind and Sun: A Surge in Green Energy

In Zhongning County, Ningxia, an endless expanse of photovoltaic panels spreads out at the edge of the Tengger Desert, forming a magnificent large-scale "sandy, Gobi, and barren" photovoltaic base. This is the source of green electricity for the Ningxia-Hunan ±800 kV UHVDC transmission project, China's first "sandy, Gobi, and barren" large base for external transmission of UHVDC power. After the "Ningxia Electricity Transmission to Hunan" project is officially completed and put into operation in 2025, it can transmit more than 36 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity to Hunan Province, which is 1,600 kilometers away, every year, and 50% of it is new energy electricity.

In the past, the "sandy, Gobi, and barren" areas had harsh natural conditions and fragile ecosystems and were regarded as desolate lands. With the progress of science and technology and in-depth exploration of new energy, these seemingly barren lands have been found to contain huge energy potential. The abundant solar and wind energy resources have become a treasure trove for new energy development, and a series of super-large new energy bases are being vigorously constructed.

Spinning wind turbines, patches of photovoltaic panels, and dense transmission lines are scattered everywhere, painting a vivid picture of the surging green energy.

China has made overall arrangements for 50 projects of the first batch of "sandy, Gobi, and barren" large-scale wind power and photovoltaic base projects with an installed capacity of 97.36 million kilowatts in 18 provinces (autonomous regions) including Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. By the end of 2024, 91.99 million kilowatts of the first batch of bases had been completed, and 90.79 million kilowatts had been put into operation.

Pan Huimin, Deputy Director of the Department of New Energy and Renewable Energy of the National Energy Administration, said that the large-scale wind power and photovoltaic bases focusing on the "sandy, Gobi, and barren" areas are the main battlefield and position for the development of new energy and the foundation for the growth of new energy installed capacity. The Central Economic Work Conference has made special arrangements for accelerating the construction of "sandy, Gobi, and barren" new energy bases. In the next step, the National Energy Administration will make good use of the experience gained from the construction of the first batch of bases and continue to promote the construction of the second and third batches of large-scale wind power and photovoltaic bases, making greater contributions to ensuring the safe power supply and promoting the clean and low-carbon transformation.

According to statistics, by the end of 2024, the cumulative grid-connected installed capacity of new energy of the State Grid reached 1.14 billion kilowatts, accounting for more than 30% of the world's total, and the new energy utilization rate has remained above 95% for many consecutive years. The State Grid Corporation actively builds a new type of power system and serves the "dual carbon" goal. It spares no effort to promote the grid connection of new energy from the "sandy, Gobi, and barren" large-scale wind power and photovoltaic bases, accelerates the pace of grid project construction, has completed a total of 38 UHVDC projects, and the cross-provincial and cross-regional power transmission capacity exceeds 340 million kilowatts.

The China Electricity Council predicts that by the end of 2025, the proportion of coal-fired power installed capacity in China will drop to 33%, and the combined installed capacity of wind power and solar power generation will exceed that of thermal power for the first time, marking that the energy structure transformation has entered a new stage. This transformation benefits from the dual drive of policy promotion and technological iteration.

New energy power generation is gradually becoming the main body of electricity supply, and coal-fired power will transform into a backup power source for ensuring supply and a flexible regulating power source. There will be a deep integration between coal-fired power and new energy, and the integrated development pattern of "wind, solar, hydro, thermal, storage, and hydrogen" is gradually becoming clear. A parallel promotion strategy coexisting large-scale clean energy bases and distributed new energy power is gradually taking shape.

Taming Green Electricity: Gathering and Long-distance Transmission

Wind and solar power are continuous, clean, green, and environmentally friendly, but they are also capricious and uncontrollable: when they are in full swing, the power is at its maximum and cannot stop, while in cloudy days or when there is no wind, the power is lacking. The drastic fluctuations, randomness, and intermittency of clean energy power pose challenges to the safe and stable operation of the power grid.

How can we domesticate the "willful and unruly" clean energy on a large scale into a continuous and stable power supply? Scientific and technological innovation is the "golden key".

In the Bashang Grassland in Hebei, white wind turbines hundreds of meters high stand in groups, and next to them are rows of photovoltaic panels that track the sun for power generation. The world's first national demonstration project integrating "wind power generation, photovoltaic power generation, energy storage system, and intelligent power transmission" is located here. Through the joint operation mode of multiple configurations of wind, solar, and storage, this project connects the Zhangbei New Energy Base, Chengde Fengning Energy Storage Base, etc. with the Beijing load center and links up hundreds of wind farms and thousands of photovoltaic power stations in Bashang. This project can not only gather and output stable and controllable green electricity but also solve the world-class technical problems of large-scale centralized grid connection and integrated application of new energy, reaching the international leading level. Relying on independent innovation, this project has broken through three world-class technical problems such as low operation reliability and created 12 "world firsts".

Recently, amidst the rumbling of machinery, the first variable-speed pumped storage project in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area officially started construction. This year, in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone, a group of nine pumped storage power stations with a total investment of nearly 70 billion yuan and a total installed capacity of 10.8 million kilowatts will be put into operation one after another. After all are completed, they can consume up to 24.4 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy every year, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 11 million residential users, and promote the stable grid connection of 300 million kilowatts of new energy in the southern region.

In the process of achieving the "dual carbon" goals, pumped storage technology has been entrusted with new important tasks. Its principle is very simple. Two reservoirs are built on the mountain and at the foot of the mountain. During the low electricity consumption period, the surplus new energy power is used to pump the water at the foot of the mountain to the upstream reservoir for storage. During the peak electricity consumption period, the water is released for power generation, enabling the electricity to be re-adjusted and allocated in terms of time and space. Pumped storage power stations are flexible, reliable, and can start and stop quickly, and are regarded as the "stabilizer" and "regulator" of new energy power generation.

At the same time, new energy storage other than pumped storage is also ushering in great development. An industry insider described this situation as "Like a sudden spring breeze overnight, thousands of pear trees in bloom." Recently, eight departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have officially issued the Action Plan for the High-quality Development of the New Energy Storage Manufacturing Industry, marking that China's new energy storage manufacturing industry has entered a new development stage. By the end of 2024, the cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage projects that have been completed and put into operation nationwide reached 73.76 million kilowatts/168 million kilowatt-hours, approximately 20 times that at the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, and an increase of more than 130% compared with the end of 2023.

Chen Wenkai, Deputy Dean of the Institute of Science and Technology Strategy Consulting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the new energy storage has broad development prospects. The iterative progress of energy storage technology will effectively promote the open sharing of energy production and consumption, achieve multi-energy coordination, and make greater contributions to the comprehensive green transformation and sustainable development of society.

In 2024, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, and the National Data Administration issued the Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a New Type of Power System (2024-2027), focusing on the key areas that urgently need to be broken through in the construction of a new type of power system, selecting typical and representative directions for exploration, and focusing on deploying and carrying out nine special actions to promote the practical implementation of the construction of a new type of power system.

Intelligent Dispatching: Ensuring Stable Supply and Meeting Demand

The  interaction between "energy storage + new energy" provides a strong guarantee for the consumption of new energy. However, how to further improve the utilization efficiency of new energy remains a common challenge faced by the power grid and users. Against this backdrop, virtual power plants have emerged.

On January 14, China's first virtual power plant for residents with a capacity of one million kilowatts started construction in Jiangsu. Relying on Jiangsu's new type of power load management system and with the help of technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, the dispersed household appliances such as air conditioners and water heaters in residents' homes are aggregated into a virtual energy pool. When it is predicted that there may be a power shortage, the power department sends an invitation to residents' mobile phones through software, encouraging residents to take the initiative to adjust the temperature of high-power smart appliances and reduce power consumption to obtain electricity fee rewards. This measure will improve the utilization efficiency of new energy power generation. According to the calculation of the power department, for every 1°C change in the temperature of an air conditioner, the adjustable load is about 0.06 kilowatts. When the air conditioners of nearly 43 million residents in Jiangsu all adjust the temperature by 1°C, about 2.6 million kilowatts of electricity can be saved.

The virtual power plant for residents is just a popular and understandable form. As an important part of the future power system, a virtual power plant is an innovative energy model based on digital technology and a smart energy management system and is widely applied at the enterprise level. Through intelligent technology and a software platform, it integrates dispersed energy resources (such as solar photovoltaic, wind power generation, biomass energy, geothermal energy, energy storage systems, etc.) to form a virtual centralized energy system. Through real-time monitoring, data analysis, and intelligent control, a virtual power plant can achieve efficient energy utilization and a balance between supply and demand.

In the development process of the new type of power system, new business forms and models such as electric vehicles and virtual power plants are constantly emerging. Power users are no longer just "loads" but have become "power sources" and "demand-side resources" that can actively participate in the balance between power supply and demand.

Liu Jizhen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has summarized the basic characteristics of the new type of power system as follows: multi-source complementarity, source-grid coordination, supply-demand interaction, and flexibility and intelligence.

With the explosive growth of artificial intelligence computing power demand triggered by large model technology and the continuous deepening of the energy revolution, there are more stable, powerful, and intelligent requirements for energy management, smart grids, intelligent dispatching, and power trading. The integrated development of "intelligent computing + new energy" has become an inevitable requirement for building a new type of power system.

At 19:45 on December 30, 2024, Chen Ming, a dispatcher at the Power Supply Service Command Center of Changsha Power Supply Company in Hunan, received a prompt from the intelligent assistant "Guangming": "It is detected that the load of Line 1 of Jinxing at the Hetang Substation of 10 kV is growing rapidly. It is expected to be overloaded in 15 minutes. To ensure power supply reliability and equipment safety, a load transfer scheme has been recommended for you. Please confirm." After receiving the prompt, Chen Ming quickly carried out dispatching operations according to the scheme recommended by "Guangming". It took only about 1 minute to successfully eliminate the risk of overloading of this line.

"Guangming" is an interpretable artificial intelligence application independently developed by Changsha Power Supply Company. It was officially launched on December 19, 2024, and then started to work in Changsha Power Supply Company. Since the winter peak power consumption period in 2024, Changsha Power Supply Company has adjusted the operation modes of 14 lines in advance according to the schemes generated by "Guangming" and completed the power source switching of 91 dual-power customers, effectively ensuring the stable power supply.

The State Grid has vigorously carried out the exploration of the application of artificial intelligence technology in the power field and has built a unified and open artificial intelligence technology innovation platform covering the company's headquarters and 27 provincial companies to promote the coordinated empowerment of power and computing power.

Going all out to lay out the development of artificial intelligence as a strategic emerging industry has become a key measure for power enterprises to actively respond to the challenges of energy transformation and solve the problems of source-grid-load-storage coordination in the new type of power system.