At present, the mainland's annual carbon emissions are about 10 billion tons, according to the "3060" strategic deployment, by 2030 to achieve carbon peak, the mainland carbon emissions will be controlled at about 11.6 billion tons, after which carbon emissions will decline year by year, to around 2060 and carbon absorption equal, so as to achieve carbon neutrality.
At present, the continent's carbon uptake is 1.2 billion to 1.4 billion tons, and net emissions are close to 9 billion tons. Since carbon absorption in nature mainly relies on plant photosynthesis, that is, ecological carbon sinks, its total amount is greatly constrained by land resource endowments, and the growth potential is very small. If industrial-grade carbon absorption (industrial carbon sink) technology does not achieve a big breakthrough, especially a big breakthrough in technical economy, it can only rely on reducing carbon emissions to achieve carbon neutrality. Since carbon emissions are strongly related to the scale and efficiency of industrial production, it is necessary to reduce carbon emissions while mitigating the impact on economic growth, and it can be said that the task of achieving carbon neutrality is extremely arduous.
The energy sector is the key to carbon neutrality
From the perspective of the industry, the carbon emission sources in the mainland account for 45% of thermal power; 35% of heavy and chemical industries; 1.5% of transportation and other 5%. It is not difficult to see that in the total carbon emissions of the mainland, almost all carbon emissions are related to energy, and are generated in the production, storage, transportation and use of energy. Therefore, it can be considered that the carbon neutrality problem is essentially an energy problem, and the way to solve the problem is to reduce carbon emissions in the whole life cycle of energy. At present, it can be mainly realized from two aspects, one is to adjust the energy structure, and the other is energy saving.
First, let's look at adjusting the energy structure. The first consideration should be given to increasing the proportion of non-fossil energy production.
According to national statistics, the current annual output of non-fossil energy on the mainland is equivalent to about 730 million tons of standard coal, accounting for 18% of all primary energy production, and the annual power generation is 2 trillion kWh, accounting for about 28% of the total power generation. In the production of secondary energy (mainly electric energy and finished oil and gas) in the mainland, the annual power generation capacity of coal power is about 5.2 trillion kWh, accounting for about 69% of the total power generation, and the overall structure of energy production is consistent with the above-mentioned carbon emission structure. Therefore, in the next few years, the mainland will vigorously develop non-fossil energy production, in addition to the development of centralized large-scale wind power, photovoltaics, solar thermal, biomass and other non-fossil energy, but also encourage the development of new energy-based distributed energy, the formation of "new energy as the main body of the new power system".
Secondly, we should consider developing electrification on the energy-using side and gradually realizing the replacement of electric energy in the fields of transportation, catering, and households. Of course, electric energy substitution should be consistent with the pace of non-fossil energy substitution on the production side, and in the absence of a fundamental change in the energy production structure, the substitution of electric energy on the energy side cannot really play a role in reducing carbon emissions.
Let's look at energy saving. Limited to the current situation of the mainland's resource endowment, whether it is to reduce the proportion of thermal power or improve the capacity of ecological carbon sinks, it is more difficult in the real economic environment, so by taking energy-saving measures to reduce energy consumption, reduce energy intensity, thereby reducing carbon emission intensity, it has become another key to achieving carbon peak carbon neutrality goals.
According to the "Carbon Peak Action Plan by 2030" issued by the State Council on October 26, 2021, the mainland aims to achieve a non-fossil energy consumption of about 20%, energy consumption per unit of GDP by 13.5% compared with 2020, and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP down 18% compared with 2020, laying a solid foundation for achieving carbon peaking; by 2030, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will reach about 25%. Carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP fell by more than 65% compared with 2005, successfully achieving the carbon peak target by 2030. Such a goal, if achieved, would be the largest reduction in carbon intensity ever recorded worldwide.
The national energy system is a complex system, whether it is to adjust the energy structure or energy conservation and emission reduction, it is necessary to grasp the core links of this complex system, to achieve a point to lead the way, to promote the implementation of the "double carbon" strategy. The ninth meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Commission held on March 15, 2021 proposed to build a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system, control the total amount of fossil energy, focus on improving the utilization efficiency, implement renewable energy substitution actions, deepen the reform of the power system, and build a new power system with new energy as the main body.
From the characteristics of the new power system, in order to realize the transformation of the power supply structure to new energy, the transmission network to the Adjustable Load Energy Internet, the load characteristics to the flexibility and production and consumption of both, the operation characteristics to a more intelligent balance and collaborative optimization mode, it is impossible to rely solely on traditional energy technology, it is necessary to introduce digital technology, through the integration of traditional energy technology and digital technology, to achieve the overall digital transformation of the energy system.
algorithm + data,
Contribute to the balancing and optimization of new power systems
Digitalization is the development, integration and innovation of traditional information technology and industrial technology (for the energy industry, energy production and operation technology).
For traditional energy technology, it integrates information technology, especially the Internet, the Internet of Things, and the progress of big data technology in recent years, so that the energy system can generate and exchange data, can interconnect and connect across time and space, and can analyze, predict and optimize based on data; for information technology, it enables the information system to break through the traditional management information system mode of manual data entry, record data, statistics and analysis data, and become a network, function, and function with energy technology systems (including automatic control systems). A fully integrated energy digital system on data. Therefore, energy digitalization is a new generation of enterprise technology system.
With regard to digitalization, there are three points to point out:
First, deep integration. The ultimate goal of digitalization is to achieve the deep integration of industrial technology and information technology, in the future energy system, digital technology or digital subsystem is an inseparable natural part of the energy system, just as today's power electronics and automatic control systems are an organic part of the power system.
Second, the relationship between digitalization and informatization. Some views oppose digitalization and informatization, or juxtapose, and think that the two are completely different systems, which is incorrect. Digital technology inherits and develops information technology, which is essentially a form of information technology in the new era.
Third, data is a core asset. In the digital era, data is the core, data is the source of the digital system, but also the result of the digital system, as long as the data is captured, no matter how the technology changes, how the supplier changes, the enterprise will not be fundamentally affected, in this sense, data will also become the core asset of the enterprise.
In addition to digitalization, there is another keyword in the construction of new power systems - "balance".
In fact, for the energy industry, "balance" is everywhere: in the production field, the pursuit is the balance of input materials (raw materials, fuels) and outputs (electric energy, refined oil); in the field of network operation, the pursuit of input energy and output load balance (for the power grid, that is, the balance of electricity).
It can be said that the balance is the normal operation of the energy system under a given condition, and it is also the core goal of the system operation. When conditions change, the energy system is optimized or deteriorated until the system is manually or automatically adjusted to the new conditions and a new equilibrium is reached. Therefore, optimization is the process of creating operating conditions and system resource allocation that are conducive to reducing costs and increasing efficiency of the energy system, so that the system migrates from a lower equilibrium state to a higher equilibrium state.
Taking an important part of the new power system - the regional integrated energy intelligence at the end as an example, the regional integrated energy system is a complex system, the energy supply side has both a large power grid power supply, and a variety of distributed energy, energy storage, electricity, heat, cold, gas, compressed air energy storage and other energy working fluids are mixed; the energy side requires both safe, stable and continuous energy supply, and also requires intelligent energy use, cost-effective rapid response to enterprise production fluctuations, energy market fluctuations, energy system fluctuations, Maximize energy efficiency. In this case, the complexity of the regional comprehensive energy balance has increased by several orders of magnitude compared with the traditional distribution network power balance. Relying solely on traditional energy technology, power electronics and automatic control technology, it is difficult to achieve overall balance and optimization, we must rely on digital technology, the use of digital technology and energy technology including automatic control technology deep integration, to achieve the "stable and long-term" operation of the regional energy system.
Energy digitalization should pay attention to data governance
Data governance is a set of management behaviors involving the use of data in an organization, initiated and promoted by the enterprise data governance department, which is a series of policies and processes on how to develop and implement business applications and technical management for data within the enterprise.
Different organizations have different definitions of data governance, and the mainland's definition of data governance stems from the SASAC's "Notice on Accelerating the Digital Transformation of State-Owned Enterprises", which describes data governance as "clarifying the centralized management department of data governance, strengthening data standardization, metadata and master data management, and regularly assessing the maturity of data governance capabilities." Strengthen the dynamic collection of data such as production sites and service processes, and establish a data collection, transmission and aggregation system covering the entire business chain. Accelerate the construction of big data platforms, innovate data fusion analysis and sharing and exchange mechanisms. Strengthen data modeling for business scenarios, dig deep into the value of data, and improve data insight capabilities."
At present, data governance is generally considered to be a broad concept in China, including data planning, organization, architecture and other management and the collection of data tools and platforms, the core is the evaluation, guidance and supervision of the effective management and utilization of enterprise data, through a series of organizational and institutional activities to ensure high-quality data continuous innovation data services, so as to maximize the value of data assets, provide strong impetus for the digital transformation of enterprises, and create digital value for enterprises.
Data governance brings a wide range of application value to enterprises, not only to improve data quality, obtain data map mapping, improve data management, but also to reduce enterprise operational risks, reduce enterprise costs, and better coordinate collaboration between various departments of the enterprise.
At present, the practice of data governance in energy companies mainly focuses on structured data, which is usually divided into the following three genres: First, analytic domain data governance, also known as "metadata governance". With metadata as the core, its goal is to streamline the data analysis and modeling process, improve data quality, and provide guarantees for building analytical data applications. Metadata, on the other hand, mainly addresses the so-called "four questions of data", that is, who am I? Where am I? Where am I from? Where am I going? Second, transactional domain data governance, also known as "master data governance." With master data at its core, its goal is to ensure smooth business applications and their integration and interaction, improve data quality, and reduce business risk. Third, data quality-driven data governance, that is, the data involved in the process of data collection, transmission, storage, modeling, and utilization of business applications and analysis applications, according to its technical uniqueness, consistency, completeness and other quality characteristics, as well as business accuracy, standardization, comprehensiveness and other quality characteristics, combing, cleaning, inspection, maintenance and other governance work.
From the perspective of the current situation of the energy industry, the three kinds of data governance have a certain intersection with each other in the process of practice, but at present, the three data governance practices have not been well integrated, and there are no typical cases of unstructured data, especially energy big data represented by time series data, and it is hoped that this situation can be changed as soon as possible. In the future, it is recommended that energy companies start from ubiquitous perception, source data, efficient optimization, comprehensive intelligence, simulation and full truth, and design and implement the future architecture of enterprises.
As with the development history of energy technology itself and informatization, energy digitalization is actually a long-term process, which cannot be achieved overnight, and it is recommended that energy companies can deepen their understanding, grasp the key points, do a good job in top-level design, and gradually build an ideal digital system.
(The author is the general manager of Tencent Cloud Energy Industry Solutions)