The Future of Power” Summit Held in Beijing
Beijing, China, November 18th, 2014 - More than 200 guests from government agencies, research institutes, energy corporations, and the media attended today’s “The Future of Power” Summit in Beijing, where they discussed China’s future energy development and the opportunities and challenges faced by energy companies. The summit was jointly organized by CBN Research and GE.
Participants discussed issues related to the future of China's energy landscape, including relevant policies and regulations, pricing mechanisms, the transformation of energy consumption patterns, innovation, and the development of new technology. It was agreed that in order to realize the transformation of energy production and consumption, China needs to call on the cooperation of the entire industry, promote collaborative innovation among stakeholders, and introduce and develop more advanced technology.
It has become more and more difficult for the current energy supply and consumption model to sustain China’s continued economic growth. To address its rising energy demands and pressing environmental challenges, China needs a more efficient and less polluting energy system. At the recently concluded APEC summit, China announced that it wants its carbon dioxide emissions to peak around 2030 and to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent within the same time frame. Expanding the clean use of coal resources, increasing the proportion of natural gas in the energy mix, and promoting the development of renewable energy such as wind and solar will be the keys to achieving this goal.
At the summit, Mr. Steve Bolze, GE Senior Vice President, President & CEO of GE Power and Water, stated, “People need a reliable, affordabe, accessible, and sustainable power supply. Connected devices and data analytics, the coming age of gas, the ongoing development of renewable energy technology, and the rise of distributed solutions are all critical to meeting these needs.”
Citing GE’s research on the global energy industry, he put forward four measures for China’s energy development:
- Industrial Internet - Through a combination of industrial machinery, cloud computing, information technology, and long distance sensors, the industrial internet can effectively raise resource production capacity and efficiency.
- Age of Gas - According to the IEA, consumption of natural gas in the US is predicted to exceed that of oil around 2030, accounting for the largest proportion of the energy mix.
- Renewable is now mainstream. - In the past few years, the cost of renewable energies, especially wind and solar power, have dramatically fallen. The advantages of renewables - a short energy development cycle, lower investment requirements, flexibility, and reliability - make them viable and desirable sources of energy.
- Rise of Distributed Power - Distributed energy can adequately utilise small scale energy resources and produce electricity close to the demand. If used in conjunction with Combined Heat and Power (CHP) technology, it can raise energy efficiency by more than 80%. Owing to this, natural gas is rapidly developing as a major form of distributed energy.
GE is currently working to combine Ecomagination solutions with the Industrial Internet to solve the global resource challenge. Ecomagination is GE’s commitment to developing technologies that reduce our consumption of natural resources, while creating economic benefits for our customers. Established in 2005, GE’s ecomagination program has been at the forefront of resource productivity solutions for a decade. Industrial Internet applications developed by GE are already at work improving resource productivity for our customers. Since 2012, GE has released 40 Industrial Internet solutions, with many more on the horizon. They are all part of the Predictivity™ suite of solutions, which is now included in the Ecomagination portfolio.
To further implement its “In China, for China" strategy, GE is partnering with Chinese energy corporations and investing and localizing its advanced technologies to help China solve the most pressing challenges in the energy industry.
Ms. Rachel Duan, President and CEO of GE Greater China, said, “GE is committed to supporting the development of China’s energy industry. We strictly follow government regulations and policies and actively look to grow with our local partners. GE has cutting-edge technologies in clean coal, gas exploitation, transportation and gas power, renewable energy, and distributed power and we believe all these technologies and solutions can contribute to the transformation of China’s energy system. We will continue to introduce the most advanced technologies, accelerate the process of localization, strengthen and expand our partnership with local companies, develop solutions specific to Chinese market needs, and create a better energy future."
GE has built joint ventures or cooperative projects with large state-owned enterprises such as China Huadian Corporation, China XD Group, State Grid Corporation of China, and Shenhua Group to produce electrical transmission and distribution equipment, coal gasification solutions, and aero-derivative gas turbines. In July of this year, the “9HA heavy-duty gas turbine combined-cycle electricity generation project” developed with Harbin Electric Corporation was selected for entry into the “China-US Green Partership Plan.” And last month, GE’s third 3X9FB gas turbine, the first of its kind in China, was put into operation by Datang Group. Also in October, the first aeroderivative gas turbine from the joint venture between Huadian & GE rolled off the assembly line.
During the forum, GE and China Coal Resources Group (“China Coal”) signed a letter of intent for cooperation on a large-scale, highly-efficient, and clean coal utilisation project. According to the agreement, GE will provide its third generation highly-efficienct, environmentally-friendly Radiant Syngas Cooler (RSC) gasification technology and related services to China Coal. This technology can capture high grade heat during the gasification process and produce huge amounts of high pressure steam, thereby greatly raising the overall energy efficiency and reducing emissions. This project will be a completely new milestone in China’s coal chemical industry thanks to both its environmental and economic benefits. The China Coal factory will become an industry model, making a huge contribution towards fulfilling China’s “clean coal utilisation” strategy.
Also during the forum, GE and ENN Energy Group (ENN) signed a memorandum of understanding for a strategic partnership. According to the agreement, GE, with its strength in core equipment technology, and ENN, with its strength in total solutions and integrated services, will concentrate on areas such as data center energy solutions and coal-to-gas energy solutions to jointly develop the gas distributed power market so as to realize the efficient utilization of natural gas and upgrade the energy structure.
Weiqun (Lillian) Xiao
GE Power
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