Building a Demonstration Zone for a Revolution in Xinjiang’s Energy Production and Consumption

— State Grid Xinjiang Electric Power Implements Demonstration Projects to Lead the Development of Clean Energy

Zhou Guangke, Li Yifeng

Xinjiang is a region rich in energy resources and holds a particularly important strategic position in the broader national energy development landscape. This year’s Government Work Report explicitly stated: ensure energy security, promote the clean and efficient utilization of coal, and develop renewable energy.

　　State Grid Xinjiang Electric Power Co., Ltd. is firmly grounded in Xinjiang’s development positioning and its abundant energy resource advantages, working wholeheartedly to implement the strategic plan of State Grid Corporation of China to build a world‑class, internationally leading energy internet enterprise with Chinese characteristics. Seizing the opportunities presented by the new round of large-scale development in the western region, the company is accelerating supply-side structural reform in the energy sector and vigorously advancing the “Five Major Leading Demonstration Projects,” with a focus on pioneering demonstration projects for clean energy development. It is making every effort to establish Xinjiang as a model zone for revolutionizing both energy production and consumption, and actively promoting the realization of the 2025 target of achieving a 25% clean energy share across the entire region.

　 　Leverage Resource Advantages to Build a New Energy Supply Landscape

　　On May 26, the construction site of Section I of the 750-kV Altay–Junbei Transmission Line Project in the Junggar Basin was bustling with activity. The project is expected to be fully completed in late August, at which time the main grid framework of the 750-kV power grid will extend to the northernmost tip of Xinjiang, further boosting the development of new energy in northern Xinjiang.

　　Xinjiang is rich in new energy resources. At present, the total installed capacity of the Xinjiang power grid has reached 92.0817 million kilowatts, with clean energy accounting for 36.9713 million kilowatts, or 40.15% of the total installed capacity. Among these, wind power accounts for 19.75 million kilowatts and photovoltaic power for 10.27 million kilowatts, placing both wind and solar power installations among the highest in the country.

　　With the support of national policies, Xinjiang’s power grid has been rapidly developing, and the construction of large-scale new energy bases is advancing at a breakneck pace. The Hami 10-million-kilowatt-class wind power base has been completed, and clean energy bases have been developed in the Tuha, Jun Dong, Jun Bei, and Tarim Basin regions. Against the backdrop of a severe oversupply of electricity within Xinjiang and a critical shortage of grid capacity for peak-shaving and new energy consumption, in order to address energy development challenges and promote the long‑term, healthy growth of the power industry, Xinjiang Power is firmly focusing on both the “intra-Xinjiang power supply” and “Xinjiang power transmission” markets, striving to maximize the development of clean energy in Xinjiang.

　　“Power Transmission from Xinjiang” represents a pivotal step in Xinjiang’s economic restructuring and clean energy development, playing a crucial role in promoting large‑scale allocation of national energy resources, ensuring the nation’s energy supply, and fostering economic and social progress. Data show that, leveraging four ultra‑and extra‑high voltage transmission channels, Xinjiang’s power sector delivered 71.2 billion kilowatt‑hours of electricity via “Power Transmission from Xinjiang” in 2019, an increase of 41.59% year-on-year. This year, the volume of electricity transmitted from Xinjiang is expected to surpass 100 billion kilowatt‑hours for the first time. While alleviating the challenge of energy consumption in Xinjiang, this initiative also helps central and eastern provinces reduce energy use and emissions, creating win‑win outcomes for all parties involved.

　　Relying on the large-scale power grid, we will build large-scale energy bases. Since the 13th Five-Year Plan, the Xinjiang power grid has established a main grid structure characterized by “four internal supply ring networks and four external transmission channels.” During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Xinjiang will focus on addressing shortcomings in its energy infrastructure and further bolstering the clean energy industry; the power grid serves as a pivotal platform for energy conversion, utilization, and optimized allocation.

　　Shifting from a phase of high-speed growth to one of high-quality development. Xinjiang Power has proactively aligned with national and local plans, strengthened the development of new infrastructure, and formulated plans centered on critical needs such as ensuring energy supply, advancing the energy transition, and protecting the ecological environment. It continues to solidify the foundation of the energy grid, fully leveraging the grid’s role as an energy hub and resource transformation platform to support Xinjiang’s economic development and the conversion of energy resources.

　　 Upgrading the Energy Structure and Building an Intelligent Energy Information Platform

　　In response to the challenges of accommodating large-scale, rapid development of new energy sources, “new energy + energy storage” is widely recognized as a crucial solution. On May 7, Xinjiang Electric Power successfully completed grid‑connection testing for the 35 kV Jieneng Keping Energy Storage Station No. 1, marking the first successful attempt at grid‑connection testing for an energy storage power station in Xinjiang.

　　Energy storage is a defining feature of the new generation of power systems. Xinjiang Electric Power is actively promoting the integration and consumption of new energy sources, organizing new energy enterprises to participate in electricity market transactions and the construction of energy storage facilities. It is also supporting the development of pumped storage hydropower stations in Fukan, Hami, and other locations, as well as the planning and preliminary feasibility studies for pumped storage projects in Aktao, Phase II of Fukan, Dabancheng, and other areas. Furthermore, it provides comprehensive support for pilot projects involving photovoltaic-side energy storage—such as photovoltaic-plus-storage systems in southern Xinjiang—as well as centralized energy storage at new energy aggregation stations.

　　The power system is an energy production and consumption system composed of generation, transmission, transformation, distribution, and utilization stages. The stable operation of the grid dispatching system serves as the foundational support for developing the energy internet. Xinjiang Electric Power is exploring applications across all links of the power system—source, grid, and load—and is building a comprehensive application and sharing platform for grid dispatching operation data, a system for fully sensing grid operating conditions, a system for intelligent analysis and rapid, precise evaluation, as well as a unified control and decision‑making system for the entire grid.

　　As the integration of new energy sources such as wind and solar power into the grid accelerates, Xinjiang Power is further refining its technical support system and implementing “source–grid–load–storage” interconnection based on energy flow, information flow, and data flow. This promotes coordinated and responsive interactions among power sources, grid sources, load sources, and storage sources, thereby building a “four-in-one” energy physical–information platform.

　　In the next-generation power system’s energy supply side, from the perspective of system-level power transmission, “Xinjiang power transmission to other regions” leverages multi-energy complementarity to deliver electricity to central and eastern China; from the standpoint of local consumption of electric energy within the system, it is absorbed through heating and cooling, industrial power consumption, electrolysis for hydrogen production, methane synthesis, and other means. Corresponding to the supply side, the terminal energy consumption power system can utilize various clean energy sources to establish regional integrated energy systems and clean energy microgrids that meet user demand, increase the share of electricity in total energy consumption and in power generation, and reduce the proportion of oil and coal used on the power generation side.

　　The development of clean energy affects the interests of multiple stakeholders, including power grids and power generation enterprises, electricity users, and manufacturers. With the premise of serving the development and consumption of clean energy, Xinjiang Power has implemented a series of measures to innovate trading products, significantly increase the share of market-based transactions, support the growth of the real economy, and promote electricity consumption—thereby passing the benefits of reform on to end‑users. In 2019 alone, the volume of electricity traded through market mechanisms by power users within Xinjiang reached 46.282 billion kilowatt-hours, with reform dividends totaling approximately 4.082 billion yuan realized through these transactions.

　　 Promote the energy transition and strive to be a leader in clean energy development.

　　On April 15, the total output of new energy on the Xinjiang power grid reached a record high of 15.47 million kilowatts, with new energy generation accounting for 54.7% of the grid’s total electricity load at that time. This marks another significant advancement and breakthrough in the integration and utilization of new energy, while also laying a solid foundation for Xinjiang’s energy transition.

　　We will steadfastly pursue the goal of maximizing the development of clean energy in Xinjiang and devote ourselves to supporting the province’s efforts to build four large-scale clean energy bases, each with a capacity of 10 million kilowatts or more. Xinjiang Power has significantly enhanced its digital management capabilities for the power grid and its resource allocation efficiency, actively launching pilot projects for new energy development and innovatively establishing a new energy management system that is “end-to-end, fully integrated, comprehensively covered, ecologically sound, and applicable across all scenarios.” To date, demand analysis and system development have been completed for 15 sub-platforms covering grid services, curtailment calculation, technical consulting, and other areas; future development will provide strong support for the construction of new energy bases.

　　Building large-scale new energy bases also comes with inherent risks. The Xinjiang power grid is the largest provincial-level power grid in China in terms of geographical coverage, and it faces particularly prominent grid security risks. Leveraging data from the energy internet, Xinjiang Power has been driving technological innovation and collaborating closely with new energy enterprises to enhance its ability to manage large-scale grids in the new era. It has developed an AGC automatic generation control system that is the most complex nationwide and supports the highest number of power plant connections—by 2019, it had already integrated 532 new energy plants, 47 thermal power plants, and 22 hydropower stations. At the same time, Xinjiang Power has conducted on-site short-circuit current tests for new energy sources that are “the most comprehensive in terms of voltage levels covered, fault types analyzed, and unit types tested,” both domestically and internationally, providing a crucial data foundation for advancing precise simulations of future power grids with a high proportion of new energy.

　　At present, how to enhance the forecasting and utilization of new energy has become the most pressing issue facing Xinjiang’s power sector. The Xinjiang Grid’s integrated platform for meteorological and power forecasting data of new energy sources has already connected data from 524 meteorological devices at new energy stations, incorporating at least five different meteorological data sources and leveraging numerical weather prediction technology to deliver microscale weather forecasts with a horizontal resolution of 1 km × 1 km. Through 68 algorithms pre‑configured on the platform, meteorological forecast data are converted into power forecasts, providing power prediction services for all new energy stations, transmission sections, regions, and the entire grid under the Xinjiang Grid, thereby effectively alleviating the pressure on ensuring reliable power supply.