Beijing Electric Power Company, SGCC: “Electricity Substitute” Project Brings Azure Sky for Beijing

Company Profile
As a provincial company of State Grid Corporation of China, Beijing Electric Power Company is formerly known as Jingshi Huashang Electric Lamp Limited Liability Company. After a hundred years of development, Beijing Electric Power Company has become a modern electric giant with its business covering power grid planning, construction, operation management and customer service. With over 7 million customers, its power supply covers the entire Beijing, about 16,400 square kilometers. Beijing Electric Power Company assumes the important mission to safeguard the safe and reliable power supply for CPC, national leading organs and major political and cultural exchange events, and thus plays a critical role in protecting energy safety, serving economic society and improving people’s livelihood.
Challenges
In recent years, air pollution, with smog as the main source, has had a strong impact on the air quality in Beijing. In 2013, Beijing saw an average of over 50% days around the year when air quality hits “unhealthy for sensitive groups” levels. Coal (oil) burning is the dominant factor (50%-60% of PM 2.5 comes from coal burning, and 20%-30% comes from fuel burning). In 2014, though the air quality was improved, only emissions of sulfur dioxide and carbon icoxide among the 6 main pollutants reached the national standard.
Due to some industries transfer to other places, the number of energy consumption enterprises reduces and power consumption in Beijing drops accordingly. Therefore, it is an irreversible trend to increase clean energy’s ratio in energy consumption by promoting electricity substitute projects like “substitute electricity for coal and oil”.
Solution
Through the energy allocation platform, Beijing Electric Power Company takes advantage of the convenient, safe, clean and efficient electricity to advocate for the new energy consumption concept of “substitute electricity for coal and oil, transmit electricity from a distance ”for the terminal energy consumption market. In addition, Beijing Electric Power Company also promotes energy conservation and emissions reduction in the society to crack the smog problem.
Formulate 2013-2017 Electricity Action Plan for Clean Air
To implement Beijing 2013-2017 Clean Air Action Plan and achieve the goal of “cutting 30% of the annual average concentration of PM 2.5 by 2017”in 2013-2017 Clean Energy Development Action Plan, Beijing Electric Power Company formulated 2013-2017 Electricity Action Plan for Clean Air and brought “substitute electricity for coal and oil” into action to increase the ratio of clean electricity in the terminal energy market and promote air pollution control in Beijing.
Build Supporting Facilities for Gas Power Centers
To achieve the goal of cutting the burning of 13 million coal and reducing the ratio of coal below 10% by 2017, Beijing government deployed to shut down coal-fired plants and built 4 gas power centers. Beijing Electric Power Company proactively built the supporting facilities, constructing 6 electric transmission and transformation equipment, 9 connecting projects, 37 kilometers of cable and tunnel and over 100 kilometers of overhead lines. In this way, Beijing Electric Power Company  has help to decrease coal consumption in Beijing. During the construction of supporting facilities, Beijing Electric Power Company implemented “green project management”, thus all equipment were delivered to the field through field measurement and finished product prefabrication to avoid noise from cutting and polishing and dust pollution.
Promote “Substitute Electricity for Coal” Project
Beijing Electric Power Company has promoted “substitute electricity for coal” project since 2001. It aims to achieve the transformation of coal-fired heating to electric heating through remolding houses and indoor lines, and building energy storage electric heating facilities. Beijing Electric Power Company analyzed the network load of “substitute electricity for coal” area to get to know the load for network facilities during the winter and achieved the full coverage of “10 kv line load collection” involving “substitute electricity for coal”. In addition, Beijing Electric Power Company formulated measures to ease the heavy load for lines and adopted differentiated measures to strengthen the supervision of all 10 KV “substitute electricity for coal ”lines during electricity rush hours. Moreover, the company conducted joint emergency rehearsals to provide a warm winter for customers.
Build Electric Automobile Charging Facilities
With the aim of “reducing polluting energy consumption and increasing the ratio of electricity in clean energy”, Beijing Electric Power Company coordinated with Beijing government to build charging service network with a radius of 5 kilometers in parking lots, 4S stores of electric automobile, expressway service zone, large malls and supermarkets and other public area through setting green channels and appointing major customer managers.
Achievements
Enhanced the economic benefits
The implementation of “substitute electricity for coal” project has tremendously improved the electricity efficiency, and the economic benefits of Beijing Electric Power Company are gradually enhanced. As of the end of 2014, Beijing Electric Power Company has increased an electricity sale of 2.382 billion kwh and established Beijing Capital International Airport, Huairou APEC Island and Intercity Expressway Charging Facilities. In addition, Beijing Electric Power Company finishes 22 charging stations and sets up a 10-minute charging network in the city. According to the requirements of 2013-2017 Electricity Action Plan for Clean Air, by the end of 2017 the company will implement “substitute electricity for coal” project involving 200,000 rural residents and increase an electricity load of 1.4 million KW. The electricity consumption has been greatly enhanced to bring economic benefits to Beijing Electric Power Company.
Improved the environment quality
In 2014, “substitute electricity for coal” project benefited 17,000 households of urban residents with 281,000 households benefiting from it in total. The center region has basically achieved coal-free heating. In addition, 155,000 households of rural residents benefited from the project, reducing the burning of 62,000 tons of coal, which is equal to the reduction of 160,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. After the completion of 4 gas power centers, Beijing will reduce the burning of 9.2 million tons of coal, increase the heating capacity by 84 million square meters and substitute heating supply capacity by 60 million square meters, which is equivalent to a reduction of 21.4 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, it is important for the improvement of air quality and reduction of PM 2.5 in Beijing.
Prospect
Electricity substitution is a long-term public welfare project with demanding requirements for quality. Beijing Electric Power Company will continue to steadily promote this project. In 2015, it remolded heating facilities in 158 villages covering about 50,000 households of rural residents. By the end of 2015, the project has achieved 2 billion KWH of substitute electricity, contributing more to Beijing’s environment. Meanwhile, Beijing Electric Power Company continues to strengthen its communication with government to improve the electricity allocation capacity of Beijing, transform energy mix and optimize network structure. It is predicted that by 2017, electricity transmission capacity will be increased by28.49 million KVA and electric transmission line 2,631 kilometers, and achieve the reduction of coal burning by 18.01 million tons, which leads to the drop of PM 2.5 concentration by 11.6%. These efforts will play an important role in pollution control and electricity network capacity upgrading.