Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, October 27 Title: Those things behind "early heating"
Xinhua News Agency "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporter
The meteorological department predicts that this winter will form a La Niña event, and the temperature in northern China and other regions is lower than the same period of the year. Recently, the cold wave has struck, and some cities in the north have been heated in advance, and some have been more than half a month in advance.
The "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporter's investigation found that in recent years, more and more cities have no longer followed the "immutable" heating schedule, and some cities have even heated in advance or delayed heating for several consecutive years.
Niu Xiaohua, executive deputy secretary general of the China Urban Heating Association, said that early heating is an important livelihood issue related to thousands of households, and it is necessary to coordinate and balance enterprise operations, social management and other aspects behind it.
Heating in advance in many places, up to more than half a month in advance
On October 12, 13 days earlier than the regular heating time, Ms. Lin, who lives in the Yanyang Community in Shuocheng District, Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province, has already had heating at home. "Now the indoor temperature is 24 degrees Celsius. In recent years, it has been heated in advance, and it is no longer frozen in winter. Ms. Lin sighed.
Han Wen, director of the Shuozhou Gas Supply and Heating Guarantee Center, told reporters that the normal heating time in Shuozhou is October 25 every year, and this year, taking into account the early cold wave weather, since October 1, the counties (cities, districts) under the jurisdiction have successively started heating, of which the central urban area has started since October 6. As of October 14, heating has begun all over the city.
In October this year, employees of a heating enterprise in Shanxi inspected heating equipment. Courtesy of the surveyed companies
Early heating is common in the northeast and colder areas in the north such as Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. Since mid-to-late September, Heilongjiang Province's Heihe, Hegang, Qitaihe, Jiamusi, Mudanjiang, Daqing and other cities have started heating earlier than originally planned. Some places heat up more than half a month in advance. For example, the normal heating day in Ordos, Inner Mongolia is October 15, and since September 28 this year, some municipal flag districts have begun to heat up.
In addition, some cities have made it clear that they will be flexibly heated according to meteorological conditions.
According to the study and judgment of the meteorological meeting, the relevant departments of Beijing Municipality proposed to take advance heating measures this year. Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, will have ready heating conditions by the end of October.
The reporter's investigation found that on the one hand, the number of cities heating in advance is increasing; on the other hand, some cities have been heating in advance for several consecutive years.
Since the heating period from 2016 to 2017, Tianjin has started central heating in advance for 6 consecutive years. In 2016 and 2019, Beijing broke the statutory heating time on November 15 and started heating ahead of schedule.
According to the Statistics of the China Urban Heating Association, in the heating season from 2019 to 2020, 41 of the 55 major cities in the northern heating area extended heating. In the 2020-2021 heating season, 64 of the 76 cities included in the monitoring extended heating, with an average extension of 14 days, of which 60 were advanced and 45 were delayed. This figure is expected to continue to grow this year.
Decision-making criteria and cost sharing are the focus
According to what standard is the heating time to determine is more scientific and reasonable?
The reporter noted that the legal basis for early heating usually comes from the heating regulations formulated by various places. In addition to specifying the regular heating time in the regulations, many regions also propose that "in the event of abnormally low temperature, the government can decide to heat in advance and postpone the heating stop", which provides space for flexible decision-making.
A number of industry insiders told reporters that in actual work, the decision to heat in advance is usually made by the government after convening multiple departments for meteorological consultation, and is implemented by the heating authorities such as urban management. For example, Beijing began to implement a weather consultation mechanism in 2010, with reference to the standard of "the average temperature is less than 5 degrees Celsius for 5 consecutive days".
Some of the experts interviewed admitted that the relevant regulations in most cities are relatively general, and lack detailed advance heating standards, trigger mechanisms, and safeguard measures.
How much does early heating add? Zhang Fuqi, director of the project office of the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau of Ning'an City, Heilongjiang Province, said that the city's urban central heating construction area is about 3.812 million square meters, and when heating began, the average daily consumption of coal by enterprises was about 550 tons, and the average daily cost of coal plus labor and hydropower was about 700,000 yuan.
Li Yunping, director of the power generation department of the Taiyuan Second Thermal Power Plant of Datang Shanxi Power Generation Co., Ltd., said that the current heating costs are mainly related to coal, and the daily heating cost is now 3.4 million yuan.
Due to the increase in the cost of early heating, some places subsidize heating enterprises. The Measures for the Management of Heat Supply in Rizhao City stipulate that the municipal, district and county people's governments shall set up heating policy subsidy funds, which will be used to extend the heating and heating period.
However, in some places, the cost of early heating needs to be borne by the company itself.
The relevant person in charge of a heating enterprise in Heilongjiang calculated an account for the reporter: the local heating needs 217,000 tons of coal this year, the payment of coal funds is expected to be 210 million yuan, the cost of labor, water and electricity, maintenance and other costs is about 0.8 billion yuan, the total cost is 290 million yuan, the heating fee charged is about 198 million yuan, and in the absence of subsidies, the loss is about 92 million yuan. "Now that the heating is advanced, the loss will continue to expand." He said.
It is worth noting that the rise in coal prices this year has a certain impact on early heating in winter. According to the heating department of Datong City, Shanxi Province, taking more than 4,000 kcal of coal as an example, the price has risen from 330 yuan per ton last year to 1250 yuan per ton, and early heating means burning off the reserves in advance, and the coal reserves of the heat source power plants are insufficient, and the gap in the entire heating period is expected to be about 2 million tons.
In response to the pressure brought by the rise in coal prices to heating coal, various localities are taking measures to actively respond. At present, Beijing has basically completed the maintenance of heating facilities, and the municipal coal reserve of huaneng power plant coal-fired units has reached 50,000 tons. Six districts of Mentougou, Fangshan, Shunyi, Huairou, Miyun and Yanqing implemented 167,000 tons of clean coal。 Heilongjiang many places monitor the coal reserve situation of heating enterprises on a daily basis and dispatch it weekly, accurately grasp the progress of coal storage, and timely monitor the changes in coal supply and demand.
Flexible and accurate to ensure people's livelihood heating
The executive meeting of the State Council recently made it clear that it will make every effort to ensure the production and transportation of coal for heating, crack down on speculation in the coal market according to law, and encourage local governments to give reasonable support to gas supply and heating enterprises.
The National Development and Reform Commission recently said that it is studying the establishment of a standardized coal market price formation mechanism to guide coal prices to stabilize in a reasonable range for a long time, ensure the safe and stable supply of energy, and ensure that the people are warm through the winter. Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and other places have also taken multiple measures to promote the rational return of coal prices.
According to many interviewees, with the increasing frequency of extreme weather and the improvement of urban residents' requirements for home comfort, flexible central heating will become a major trend.
"The key is to improve the scientific decision-making system." Niu Xiaohua believes that in addition to the meteorological department's research and judgment on climate change, more dimensions can be added as a reference for decision-making, such as improving social participation, listening to the opinions of citizens, enterprises and relevant management departments, so that the decision-making process is more open and transparent, and the effect is more accurate.
In addition, it is necessary to adjust the cost-sharing mechanism, improve the government reserve coal system, and solve the problem of increasing the cost of heating enterprises. Xu Hongchang, head of the heating service section of the Shuozhou Gas Supply and Heating Guarantee Center, suggested that the cost sharing problem in early heating should be clarified, and the coal supply should be strengthened to ensure smooth heating.
Niu Xiaohua believes that in the future, it should be changed from the "on-time heating" mode to "on-demand heating", and it is necessary to realize a new intelligent operation of the heating mode based on the regulation of the end of the residents, so that the people can take heat at any time as needed to meet the needs of comfortable heating.
"This will be a huge change for the heating industry, which needs to be combined with the reform of the heating system and the legislative work of heating, promote the revolution on the supply side, promote the scientific and technological innovation and industrial upgrading of the heating industry, and promote the industry to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as soon as possible." Niu Xiaohua said. (Reporters Zhou Wentao, Wang Hao, Sun Liangquan, Dong Baosen, Luo Xin)