National Development and Reform Commission, National Energy Administration: Building Solar Thermal Power Stations in an Adapted Manner
On January 6th, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) issued a notice on the "Action Plan for Optimizing the Regulation Capacity of the Power System (2025-2027)."
The plan requires that by 2027, the regulation capacity of the power system will be significantly enhanced, the market environment and business models for the development of various regulatory resources will be further improved, and the dispatch mechanisms for various regulatory resources will be refined. Through the construction and optimization of regulation capacity, it will support the reasonable consumption and utilization of an average annual increase of more than 20 million kilowatts of new energy from 2025 to 2027, ensuring that the national new energy utilization rate is no less than 90%.
Efforts will be coordinated to enhance the regulation capacity of renewable energy, and solar thermal power stations will be built in an adapted manner according to local conditions.
The plan clearly states that energy authorities of provinces (autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government) must implement the requirements of this plan, compile regulatory capacity construction plans for their respective regions, and submit them to the NDRC and NEA before the end of June 2025. They should also report the annual implementation progress, rolling revisions, and other related work in conjunction with the "15th Five-Year" energy and power planning at the beginning of each year. Regulatory agencies of the NEA should also carry out supervision accordingly.
In the "Regulatory Capacity Construction Plan (2025-2027) Compilation Outline" provided in the document, it is pointed out that the plan should fully connect with the boundary conditions of the energy and power development plan of the province (autonomous region, and municipality directly under the Central Government), coordinate the development of renewable energy, technical and economic factors, and take the reasonable consumption and utilization of new energy as the goal. Through production operation simulation and long-cycle market-based simulation tests, the annual regulation capacity demand, construction targets, and layout should be reasonably determined.
On the power supply side, in accordance with the relevant requirements of this plan, the scale, layout, and timing of the construction of regulation capacity for various power sources such as coal-fired power, gas-fired power, hydropower, and solar thermal power should be clearly defined.
Solar thermal regulation capacity = ∑ (maximum technical output of each solar thermal unit - minimum technical output of each solar thermal unit).
For more details, please refer to the document: https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xwdt/tzgg/202501/P020250106572482271813.pdf
