In November 2016, just before the end of the year, the "Thirteenth Five Year Plan for Power Development" was finally released.

We can see that reducing coal and increasing clean energy will continue. The policy of restricting the speed and total amount of coal-fired power development will also continue. According to the plan, coal-fired power construction projects with a capacity of over 150 million kilowatts will be cancelled or postponed, and the installed capacity will be controlled within 1.1 billion kilowatts.

At present, the installed capacity of thermal power plants with a capacity of 6000 kilowatts and above in China has reached 1.03 billion kilowatts, and the difficulty of future regulation seems considerable.

Clean energy will develop significantly, with wind power reaching 210 million kilowatts and solar power reaching 110 million kilowatts by 2020. Compared to previous rumors, wind and solar power have been slightly reduced, but the target is still high.

Among them, photovoltaics will tilt towards distributed systems. Among the target of 110 million kilowatts of photovoltaic installed capacity, distributed will reach over 60 million, which means that distributed will usher in great development. Below, we have sorted out the details of both increases and decreases.

Increase clean energy! The development speed of wind power is slowing down, and distributed photovoltaics are the focus

According to the plan, the installed capacity of wind power in China will reach over 210 million kilowatts by 2020, including about 5 million kilowatts of offshore wind power. The installed capacity of solar power generation has reached over 110 million kilowatts, including over 60 million kilowatts of distributed photovoltaics and 5 million kilowatts of solar thermal power generation.

At the opening ceremony of the Photovoltaic Conference, Zhu Ming, Director of the New Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, mentioned that the preliminary estimate is that the total grid connected capacity of wind and photovoltaic power in 2020 should reach at least 400 million kilowatts, and the newly released plan aims to reduce this figure by 80 million kilowatts.

By the end of 2015, the cumulative grid connected wind power had reached 129 million kilowatts, and at the previous Wind Energy Conference, leaders from the Energy Bureau predicted that it would reach 150 million kilowatts this year. According to the plan, there is still about 60 million kilowatts of space in the next few years of the 13th Five Year Plan, with an average annual increase of 15 million kilowatts. Compared with the previous two years, the absolute number of newly installed wind power capacity has decreased. In 2015, the newly installed wind power capacity was 32 million kilowatts, and in 2014, it was 20 million kilowatts. Based on this, it is estimated that the development of wind power will moderately slow down in the years following the 13th Five Year Plan.

Han Shui, Chief Engineer of the National Energy Administration, also stated in response to a reporter's question that the layout of wind and solar power will be optimized during the 13th Five Year Plan period. Some areas that have abandoned wind and power will develop in an orderly manner, and the scale and pace will be appropriately slowed down. The reasonable level of wind and solar curtailment rate should be controlled within 5%.

According to data from the National Energy Administration, in the first half of this year, the average wind power curtailment rate in China was as high as 21%, and in areas with severe wind curtailment such as Gansu and Xinjiang, the curtailment rate was even close to 50%. In the first half of the year, the total amount of wind power curtailment in China was 32.3 billion kilowatt hours.

The severe wind and solar power curtailment in the northwest region has become increasingly severe, with a curtailment rate of over 30% in the northwest provinces. According to data provided by State Grid Corporation of China, in the first half of the year, the cumulative amount of abandoned solar power in the operating area of State Grid Corporation of China was 3.305 billion kilowatt hours, an increase of 91% year-on-year, and the proportion of abandoned solar power was 12.1%, an increase of 2.05 percentage points year-on-year.

The development of clean energy also faces the challenge of optimization. The 13th Five Year Plan for photovoltaics used to have a rumored target of 150 million kilowatts, but the plan proposes 110 million kilowatts.

As of the end of 2015, China's cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation was 43.18 million kilowatts, including 37.12 million kilowatts of ground power stations and 6.06 million kilowatts of distributed power stations. According to statistics from the Photovoltaic Industry Association, affected by the "630" rush for installation, the newly installed photovoltaic capacity exceeded 20GW in the first half of the year. Recently, the Secretary General of the Association, Wang Bohua, predicted at a meeting that the installed photovoltaic capacity this year may be nearly 30GW.

With 43GW and nearly 30GW this year, the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaics may exceed 70GW by the end of this year. If calculated according to the planned 110 million kilowatts, the remaining years can only be divided into 10 million kilowatts per year. It is worth noting that the newly added photovoltaic installations will tilt towards distributed systems.

The plan proposes that distributed photovoltaics should reach over 60 million kilowatts by 2020. As of the end of 2015, the cumulative installed capacity of distributed photovoltaics reached 6.06 million kilowatts, indicating that there will be great opportunities for distributed photovoltaics during the 13th Five Year Plan period.

Previously, Liang Zhipeng from the New Energy Department of the National Energy Administration also mentioned in his speech that the top priority of the 13th Five Year Plan is to vigorously develop the application of distributed photovoltaics. However, in this way, the development space of ground power stations will be squeezed.

But don't forget, this year the Energy Bureau alone approved 5.5GW as the leader, and the first batch of 2.98 million kilowatts of photovoltaic poverty alleviation were also ground power stations. Future ground power stations may exceed planning targets.

At the end of last year, the National Energy Administration issued a draft of the "Thirteenth Five Year Development Plan for Solar Energy Utilization" to relevant departments such as the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Bureau, which mentioned that by the end of 2020, the total installed capacity of solar thermal power generation should reach 10 million kilowatts. This plan will compress the target to 5 million kilowatts. It is said that the main reason for the downward adjustment of the target is that the official believes that the installation target of 10 million kilowatts is too idealistic.

Coal power installed capacity is controlled within 1.1 billion kilowatts, accounting for about 55%

The plan clearly proposes to strictly control the planning and construction of coal-fired power plants, and reasonably control the progress of coal-fired power base construction. Continuing the policy aimed at coal-fired power plants since the beginning of this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Energy Bureau have successively issued documents to curb coal-fired power plants since April this year.

As of the end of June 2016, the installed capacity of coal-fired power plants above designated size has reached 920 million kilowatts, and by the end of September, the installed capacity of thermal power plants above 6000 kilowatts in China was 1.03 billion kilowatts. According to previous statistics, as of January 2016, the number of coal-fired power projects under construction and planned in various regions reached 190 million kilowatts. It is still somewhat difficult to control the installed capacity of coal-fired power plants within 1.1 billion kilowatts.

Huang Xuenong, Director of the Electric Power Department of the Energy Bureau, admitted that the target task of 1.1 billion kilowatts is not easy. Based on the projects that have already started, been approved, and are under construction, if not controlled, it will reach over 1.25 billion by the end of the 13th Five Year Plan.

But he believes that proposing this goal is because the Energy Bureau believes that 1.1 billion is enough to ensure both electricity supply and demand and to control the utilization of coal-fired power at a reasonable level. The cancellation and postponement of coal-fired power construction projects exceeding 150 million kilowatts are based on calculations.

Regarding regulatory measures, Huang Xuenong raised three points:

One is the risk warning mechanism for coal-fired power planning and construction, with red, yellow, and green warnings. Red areas must not be rebuilt or approved again.

The second is to adopt the three measures of "canceling one batch, delaying one batch, and delaying one batch".

The third is to eliminate outdated production capacity. In the past few years, the government has made great efforts in this area. Currently, most of the easy to eliminate ones have been eliminated, and the rest are hard bones, but this matter still needs to be done. Based on the current situation of outdated units, the government has set a target of 20 million kilowatts. Through these measures, we strive to control the installed capacity of coal-fired power plants at the level of 1.1 billion by 2020.

Reducing 150 million kilowatts of coal-fired power projects means reducing 30 million kilowatts annually, which is also a significant task.