Coal prices open

The signing of the new year's coal coal contract will enter the negotiation stage again, and the contradiction between coal and electricity will be diverted; the peak of winter electricity consumption will come and the thermal power company's losses will further increase. Close to the year, the debate over the price of coal has stirred up nerves in the market.

"For the reform of the energy price system, perhaps the debate may be fruitless for several days." Li Junfeng, director of the National Center for Climate Change Strategic Research and International Cooperation Center, is so joking.

Coal-fired power prices are trending

“As soon as the price merges, the key contract coal prices will be closer to market prices.” Hao Xiangbin, director of the Economic Operations Department of the China Coal Industry Association, told the China Economic Times in an interview on November 25th that the price of coal is equal to both coal and electricity. It is advantageous, but it must be accompanied by a corresponding price execution plan.

In the current market situation where coal supply exceeds demand, it provides an opportunity for coal prices to merge. According to the information released by the National Development and Reform Commission, since 2013, the domestic coal market will be fully liberalized, and the state will no longer intervene in coal prices; the report on the cancellation of the key contract to advance the coal price merger has been reported to the State Council.

The optimism that coal-power contradiction will ease after the coal price coalesce is not fully recognized. At the 4th "Energy. Power Development." Forum held on November 25th, Li Ying, chief engineer of the State Grid Energy Research Institute, stated that "the so-called coal price coalition cannot solve the coal price contradiction. At present, China's major contracts Coal and coal in the spot market are two different types of coal in two different markets. Even if the entire coal price is determined based on the spot market price, the coal price contradictions cannot be resolved, and the entire coal price may also be used together. Volatility brings more new problems."

An official from the Department of Policy and Regulation of the National Energy Administration told the China Economic Times on the sidelines of the meeting that the coal price merging needs to start from the entire electricity price reform, and it needs to improve the coal and electricity linkage policy to ensure the coal price, the on-grid electricity price and the sales price in real time. Linkage, rather than simple coal price formation mechanism, unilateral practices are not conducive to the long-term development of the industry, it is difficult to have a substantive effect.

In this regard, Hao Xiangbin's proposal is to reduce the linkage rate of coal prices, while reducing the proportion of power companies to digest the price of coal, such as between 5% -10%, while maintaining the power of power generation companies to negotiate, while minimizing the cost of coal The distortion of change.

Li Ying bluntly stated that it should establish a unified national coal long-term contract and spot market platform, and strictly monitor the transportation price, and set the ceiling price for electric coal in reference to the international market price.

Electricity price level is inconsistent with energy conservation and emission reduction

Wang Baole, Director of the Planning and Development Department of Guodian Group, said that in recent years, coal-fired electricity price linkage mechanism has not been implemented in time due to various factors, and thermal power plants have been in a state of deficit. For example, the five largest power generation groups still have thermal power per kilowatt-hour. The history of 3 points is owed to the company. From January to September of this year, the five major power generation groups had a loss of 12.8 billion yuan in thermal power.

According to publicly available information, from the perspective of industry profit levels, the average profit rate of total assets of China's power industry since 2003 was only 2.4%, which was much lower than 29.6% in the oil and natural gas industry and 7.9% in the coal industry; compared with the growth rate of CPI. Look, since 2006 China's electricity price growth rate 3.4%, far lower than the CPI 3.7% growth rate, the actual electricity price is negative growth.

CEC Secretary-General Wang Zhixuan told this reporter that thermal power is the basis for securing China's electricity supply, and will continue to develop on the basis of cleanliness. However, the loss of thermal power not only affects the enthusiasm of the operation, but also affects the power of the power generation companies to further invest in thermal power, and adversely affects the safe and stable supply of electricity.

Electricity price mechanism should promote the development of clean energy

Li Ying believes that the current electricity price system and mechanism do not meet the needs of clean energy development. Mainly in:

In the aspect of power supply investment, we should focus on promoting clean energy development: reduce the benchmark price for clean energy implementation with technological advancement, reduce the cost, publish declining standards year by year, and increase the scientificity of price guidance; establish distributed power supply and microgrid related The price mechanism guides its scientific development.

In the power operation segment, we will focus on increasing the enthusiasm of the grid for peaking and attracting more clean energy. She said that coal, electricity, thermal power, gas, nuclear power to break the current average on-grid tariffs, both the implementation of peak-to-hour benchmarking on-grid tariff; hydropower implementation of peak and valley according to the river basin benchmarking on-grid tariff; establish a sound power generation auxiliary service prices, pumped storage power station And energy storage price mechanism.

Li Ying suggested that in the power transmission link, it should focus on improving the cross-regional transportation capability of clean energy bases: appropriately increase the subsidies for wind power and other renewable energy power generation access systems; and send out the necessary networks for large-scale renewable energy power generation and delivery. Reinforce the project into the scope of renewable energy subsidies.

“In the electricity sector, the state should focus on improving the utilization of clean energy in the low valley.” Li Ying told this reporter further that all power users implement the peak valley price or seasonal peak-to-valley price, increase the spread, and gradually implement the residents' electricity use. The peak-to-valley ladders are time-saver electricity prices;