This summer, scorching heat swept across China, with national power demand reaching new records four times. State Grid’s operating area peak load hit 1.27 billion kilowatts, recorded twice. Behind these figures lies the surging pulse of China’s economy — electricity consumption by emerging industries, represented by high-tech and equipment manufacturing, has continued to climb, solidifying the foundation for summer power demand growth.
Beneath the surface of record-breaking loads, a quiet revolution is underway.
In Shanghai, a virtual power plant achieved a single-response peak of 1.6477 million kilowatts, equivalent to adding a medium-sized thermal power plant out of thin air during peak hours. In Zhejiang, an AI dispatcher named “Guangqing” generated optimized dispatch strategies in one minute, improving efficiency by more than three times. In Jiangsu, over 233,000 low-voltage distributed solar panels achieved synchronized and precise control.
These details scattered across different scenarios point to three profound changes: the grid’s flexibility stems from structural transformation; new energy’s observability, measurability, controllability stems from technological innovation; and massive resources being “gathered like sand into a tower” stem from mechanism reform.
The New Power System Construction “15th Five-Year Plan” (hereinafter referred to as the “Plan”) clarifies that by 2030, the share of non-fossil fuel power generation installed capacity will reach 65%, and the power generation share will reach 50%. Over the next five years, clean energy will account for half of power supply.
With structural, technological, and institutional synergy, State Grid is turning the grand blueprint of new power system construction into reality.
Structural Change: Main-distribution-microgrid coordination weaving a “flexible and resilient” grid
The Plan proposes building a new power grid with main-distribution-microgrid coordination. Strengthening the main grid, making distribution networks resilient, and activating microgrids — State Grid is laying out plans along this主线, and the new pattern of a “flexible and resilient” power grid is taking shape.
Strengthening the main grid, unblocking energy allocation “arteries.” China’s energy resources and power consumption centers exhibit a typical reverse distribution, with ultra-high voltage (UHV) Shouldering cross-region transmission responsibilities.
This summer, Chongqing experienced maximum temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius for 25 consecutive days, with grid load surging to 31.4 million kilowatts. Over 2,000 kilometers away, on the Gobi desert at the northern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang, 6 million kilowatts of power from the “Desert, Gobi and Barren” new energy base crossed mountains and rivers to enter Chongqing, one全力 outputting and one steadily receiving, a partnership across thousands of kilometers that has become a vivid footnote for national optimal energy resource allocation.
Arteries must not only deliver far, but also be adjustable. The Fujian-Jiangxi back-to-back interconnection project is in full swing, with construction workers using drones to hoist materials. This project, approximately 99 kilometers long, adopting flexible DC back-to-back converter technology, is planned to be put into operation before the peak summer season of 2027, enabling bidirectional power transmission of 3 million kilowatts. During the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, State Grid expects to put 15 cross-region直流 lines into operation, reaching 500 million kilowatts of cross-provincial transmission capacity, tripling cross-regional power mutual assistance capacity compared to the end of the “14th Five-Year Plan.”
Building resilient distribution networks, bridging the “last mile” of power supply service. In Jiangsu, intelligent distribution network automation equipment achieves full coverage, with “terminal sensing + edge computing + cloud decision-making” shortening fault location to within 2 minutes and self-healing recovery to within 8 minutes. By 2030, millisecond-level isolation and second-level self-healing are expected. From “people waiting for power” to “power coming to people,” distribution network resilience is growing from the details of each fault handling. During the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, State Grid strives to add over 900 million kVA of new distribution network capacity, ensuring timely grid connection of over 60 million kilowatts of distributed power annually.
Activating microgrids, energizing the grid’s “nerve endings.” In Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County on the Pamir Plateau, with an average altitude of over 4,000 meters, air oxygen less than 60% of the plain, and extreme temperatures dropping to minus 39 degrees Celsius, the area has long relied on a single 220-kilovolt line weakly connected to the main grid. In March this year, a 15-megawatt/30-megawatt-hour grid-forming energy storage system was installed here, enabling instantaneous island operation switching during faults and ensuring 72 hours of uninterrupted power supply for Grade I important loads in the county. The border grid has thus transformed from a “fragile extremity” into a “self-healing hub.” During the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, a batch of village-level and end-supply-type microgrid demonstration projects will grow across the country.
With the main grid “connected,” distribution grid “resilient,” and microgrid “active,” a new power grid of distinct layers and interactive coordination is accelerating formation. However, structure is only the skeleton; to bring this skeleton to life requires key core technologies as flesh and blood.
Technological Change: Innovation making new energy “observable, measurable, and controllable”
In Hangzhou in July, with temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius, the load curve on the dispatch hall screen rose sharply. The dispatcher did not unfold drawings or make phone calls, merely calling out, “Hello, Guangqing.” In an instant, the operational status of 9,517 transmission and distribution lines and 504 substations flowed rapidly on the screen. One minute later, an optimized dispatch strategy was generated. During the peak summer season, Hangzhou’s power dispatch efficiency increased by more than three times, and power supply capacity improved by 18.2%.
The Plan proposes accelerating the research and application of “AI+” and other new power grid technologies such as flexible grid-forming, intelligent regulation, and long-duration energy storage, reaching 300 million kilowatts of new energy storage installed capacity by 2030. Since the beginning of this year, State Grid has deeply advanced its “AI+” special action, continuously making breakthroughs in intelligent dispatch, grid-forming technology, and new energy storage. From “Guangqing” by the West Lake to implementation at the National Power Dispatch and Control Center and over 10 regional and provincial dispatch centers, power grid numerical simulation and artificial intelligence have been deeply integrated, completing tens of thousands of load flow adjustments and stability judgments, with overall efficiency improving more than tenfold. Grid dispatch is moving from “manual experience-based judgment” to “intelligent rapid decision-making.”
New energy storage gives power regulation more “confidence.” In Gansu, new energy storage grid-connected installed capacity has exceeded 10 million kilowatts, with a province-wide, second-level response, multi-source coordinated all-domain intelligent regulation center taking shape. “This is equivalent to equipping wind and solar power stations with large-capacity ’energy warehouses,’ storing surplus electricity during the day and releasing it at night when there is no wind or light,” said Wang Zheng, Director of the Comprehensive Technology Department of State Grid Gansu Power Dispatch Center. Ten-million-kilowatt-level energy storage can additionally accommodate 7.55 billion kilowatt-hours of green electricity annually, equivalent to saving 930,000 tons of standard coal and reducing nearly 5.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. During the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, State Grid’s operating area will add 140 million kilowatts of new energy storage capacity.
Grid-forming technology enables new energy to “support the grid.” As of the end of August this year, new energy installed capacity in the Jibei area reached 83.0373 million kilowatts, accounting for 74.24% of total installed capacity, ranking first nationwide. At the Zhangbei Flexible DC Project — the world’s first flexible DC grid engineering project, State Grid innovatively applied “grid-forming open-loop control strategy,” effectively flattening new energy output fluctuations and improving green electricity transmission capacity by more than 30%, with the project achieving 4.5 million kilowatts of full-power operation. The wind and light from Bashang transform into surging electricity, steadily delivered to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. In Jinhu, Jiangsu, a grid-forming energy storage power station completed its first long-duration dual-unit parallel islanded operation test, achieving millisecond-level grid-connected/islanded switching, providing a new solution for distribution network stable operation under high-proportion distributed photovoltaic access.
From AI dispatch to ten-million-kilowatt energy storage clusters to grid-forming control strategies, a series of key technological breakthroughs make “weather-dependent” new energy predictable, dispatchable, and controllable.
Technology has answered “can it,” but a deeper question arises: how to make every household and enterprise participants and co-builders of this transformation?
Mechanism Change: Activating momentum, “gathering sand into a tower” with massive resources
“Rivers and seas do not select streams, therefore they can be deep.” Technology equips the grid with “brains” and “muscles,” while mechanism innovation awakens massive distributed resources sleeping on the user side, gathering them like sand into a tower.
Virtual power plants gather dispersed loads. This summer, Shanghai experienced multiple extreme heatwaves. On July 16, State Grid Shanghai Electric Power initiated a citywide virtual power plant response, setting a record of 1.6477 million kilowatts, approximately equivalent to adding a 1.65-million-kilowatt medium-sized thermal power plant at peak moment. Responses have moved from “every other day” to “hourly-level,” with an average response accuracy of 89%. As of the end of August, the platform had connected 72 operators, with a total declared adjustable capacity of 2.8566 million kilowatts, gathering resources scattered across thousands of households. The Plan proposes that by 2030, demand-side peak-shaving capacity will exceed 100 million kilowatts. State Grid is accelerating the layout of virtual power plants, vehicle-to-grid interaction, and computing-power-grid coordination pilots, meeting the needs of 35 million charging facilities during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period.
Vehicle-to-grid interaction enables mobile energy storage “bidirectional奔赴.” From July 27 to August 9, State Grid Shandong Electric Power organized an “evening discharge campaign,” with 31 demonstration stations accumulating 2,338 discharge trips and total discharge volume exceeding 40,000 kilowatt-hours, guiding vehicle owners to send surplus battery power back to the grid during peak periods. In June this year, China’s first “ship-to-grid interaction” test was completed in Lianyungang, Jiangsu. The pure electric tugboat “Yungang Electric Tug No. 9” connected to the port microgrid, discharged stably at 80 kilowatts for 7 hours, and fed back 560 kilowatt-hours of electrical energy, strongly supporting container quay operation. Price and subsidy leverage “low-charge high-discharge,” with multiple parties working together. Batteries on wheels and by ship sides have become valuable resources dispatchable by the grid.
Computing-power-grid coordination enables green computing to “follow wind and light.” As the nation’s first green computing-power-grid coordination pilot province, Qinghai built the nation’s first clean energy and green computing dispatch center. In July this year, State Grid Qinghai Electric Power, in collaboration with Qinghai University’s Supercomputing Center and the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, completed cross-provincial computing dispatch verification: using cross-provincial spot electricity price differences as signals, non-real-time computing tasks from Wuxi were relocated to Qinghai to fill grid load valleys, saving approximately 66% electricity costs for both regions on the day, and improving equipment utilization from 65% to about 87%. On the same plateau, China’s first high-altitude, high-cold-region green electricity hydrogen production project was implemented in Delingha, opening another outlet for surplus green electricity.
A building in Shanghai, a car in Shandong, a server in Qinghai — what were once merely power consumers have now all become dispatchable resources of the grid.
As the main force in new power system construction, State Grid is pushing structural reshaping, technological breakthroughs, and innovative mechanisms from pilots to the entire network, letting the winds and lights of thousands of miles of rivers and mountains be caught, smoothed, and delivered by a smarter, more resilient, and more open network.
Source:Energy China Client