China's "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" Power Equipment Needs to Make Seven Breakthroughs

"In recent years, China's equipment manufacturing industry has made great achievements, especially in the energy sector. However, we feel that improvements need to be made. We hope to make breakthroughs in some key areas during the 12th Five-Year Plan period." January 8, National Li Ye, Director of the Energy Conservation and Technology Equipment Division of the Energy Administration, stated at the "China High-end Equipment Industry Development Summit Forum."

According to reports, during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period that has just passed, China’s equipment industry has achieved major achievements, the scale of its industries has continued to expand, the level of technology has significantly increased, and its international competitiveness has increased significantly. This has become a veritable equipment manufacturing country.

“Eleventh Five-Year Plan” achievements According to Zhang Xiangmu, Director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, from 2006 to 2010, the average value-added of China’s equipment industry has grown at an average annual rate of over 25%, of which the output of power generation equipment ranks first in the world. In the past 2010, China’s equipment industry maintained steady and rapid growth, and made important contributions to the overall industrial economy’s recovery. During the first 11 months, the industrial added value of equipment manufacturing enterprises above the designated size increased by 21% year-on-year, and the main business income was nearly 13 trillion yuan, an increase of 34% year-on-year, and the total profit realized exceeded 900 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 51%. Electrical appliance industry output growth rate exceeds 30%.

At the same time, during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, the technological level of China’s equipment manufacturing industry has been significantly improved, some major technical equipment has reached the world’s advanced level, and the complete capacity of the equipment industry has been improved. The localization rate of the millions of kilowatts of nuclear power units currently under construction can reach 80%; the localization rate of UHV demonstration projects exceeds 90%; and the proportion of domestically generated power generating units in the total installed power of the country also exceeds 80%. The continuous increase in the proportion of high-tech products and high value-added products has also improved the product structure. Among them, power equipment companies continue to adapt to market demand, strengthen independent innovation, vigorously develop new products, and make nuclear power, wind power and other products a new growth engine. A number of major equipment began to go out of the country and enter the international market, achieving a historic turning point from "defectiveness" to "surplus."

"China's equipment manufacturing industry will continue to maintain stable and rapid growth in 2011, and it is expected that the annual industrial added value will increase by about 15% year-on-year," Zhang Xiangmu predicted.

Obviously, China's equipment manufacturing industry has made many achievements and the future development situation is excellent. However, Li Ye pointed out that it still has some shortcomings and needs to be improved during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period.

"Twelve Five" Improvement "As we all know, China's wind power industry will develop to a new level in the 'Twelfth Five-Year' period, but we hope that everyone will pay more attention to the amount of wind power generated instead of the installed capacity. This involves grid-connected problems, and there are fans. Quality problems," said Li Ye. “The operation of wind turbines in harsh environments is not easy to achieve high reliability and long life. Germany can realize the maintenance-free operation of wind turbines in recent years, so we will continue our next step. Strengthen the quality to avoid windmills all over the country, but not much power generation in one year. At the same time, in the field of wind power, we hope to really create one or two companies that can stand firm in the world."

In this regard, Li Ye pointed out that during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the energy equipment sector must first solve the issue of fan quality that is of concern to all parties.

The second is the issue of grid connection. Due to the intermittent nature of many renewable energy power generation, it is necessary to use variable-frequency inverter equipment when connecting to the grid. The core technology of such equipment is power electronics and automation control technology, which has always been our weak point. "This is very obvious in the field of energy equipment. Many of our machines can be manufactured, but it does not matter when it comes to control systems," said Li Ye.

And precisely because of this, many foreign companies can easily make excessive profits in our country. Taking a 2 MW wind power converter as an example, when a company cannot produce its own products in China, the bid price of a foreign company is 2.3 million yuan each, and when the 2MW permanent magnet direct-drive wind power generation led by Ma Weiming, a member of the Chinese Naval University of Engineering, leads the development. After the success of the converter, the foreign company immediately lowered the price of the product to more than 1 million yuan per unit. In recent years, China’s major technological equipment autonomy has greatly reduced the cost of energy project construction. Domestic equipment prices are generally 1/3 to 1/2 lower than comparable imported equipment, which enhances the competitiveness of the energy industry and market vitality. Obviously, During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, this work will continue.

The third issue is nuclear power equipment. Under the pressure of energy conservation and emission reduction, consensus has been reached in the industry on the major development trend of nuclear power. The greatest concern in the development of nuclear power is the security issue. The particularity of nuclear power makes it possible for any minor mistake it made to be a fatal mistake, which will have a huge negative impact on the entire industry. This raises the level of related equipment manufacturing. Very high demand.

"In terms of nuclear power equipment production, China's three major power companies and two major heavy machinery companies have done a lot of work. There is no problem in terms of production capacity, but I really dare not say that what we are doing is absolutely good." Li Yeyin said with a long-term emphasis, “As an example of castings and forgings required for the AP1000 nuclear power plant of the third generation of nuclear power generation, although China has been able to produce it, it is still unable to qualify for every one product, and since there is no independent intellectual property rights, China’s nuclear power equipment exports. There are still difficulties. We should cultivate our own core competitiveness."

The fourth is that there are still many problems in conventional power equipment that have not been solved, such as the auxiliary equipment of thermal power plants and the localization of gas turbines.

It is reported that at present, China's thermal power plant boilers, steam turbines and turbine generators have achieved localization, but a large number of auxiliary equipment still need to be imported, such as valves, pipelines and so on. According to Li Ye, recently its department has selected five power plants and 10 units to implement the localization of valves and pipelines.

In addition, “gas turbines are also a 'heart disease' in the energy sector, and it can be said that if the gas turbine cannot be domesticated, then adjusting the power generation structure is empty talk. Through independent research and development and cooperation with foreign companies, China can already complete 60% 70% of gas turbines are processed but not core technologies. We are determined to achieve a major breakthrough during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, said Li Ye.

The fifth is peaking and energy storage. Pumped storage is currently the main peaking method and energy storage method in China. Therefore, in the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, it is necessary to vigorously develop pumped-storage projects to solve large-scale energy storage problems. At present, China has achieved localization of major equipment other than control systems, and further efforts are needed.

The sixth is that there are still many areas where China's energy equipment manufacturing industry has not stepped in. For exploration and mining equipment such as coal, petroleum, and coalbed methane, offshore engineering equipment, etc., more efforts are needed in these areas.

The seventh issue is the manufacturing of equipment required for the construction of smart grids and UHV projects. “In terms of smart grids, China has a large number of equipment not yet. In the past, the division of labor in China's machinery industry was very small, and the primary equipment and secondary equipment were separate, and the equipment needed for the smart grid required a combination of primary and secondary. This problem remains to be solved. Li Ye said.