SERC urges electricity market multilateral trading

The pilots of multilateral power trading in Inner Mongolia are likely to bring breakthroughs to the reform of the domestic electricity pricing system. As a result, the slow progress of reform of the regional electricity market in the past nine years of electrical reform may change.

In the recent days of “electricity shortage” in some areas during the “electricity shortage” period, State Electricity Regulatory Commission officials told reporters that the multilateral trade of electricity that is being implemented in Inner Mongolia can also be implemented in other power surplus regions. The reporter learned that, unlike the “central auction” implemented in the regional electricity market, Inner Mongolia’s electricity multilateral trading market introduced two-way competition on the “generation side and the user side”, allowing large-scale user companies and power generation companies in the region to directly purchase and sell. People in the industry believe that this more flexible pricing mechanism than in the past is conducive to reflecting market supply and demand and truly reflecting the cost of energy resources.

The reporter learned from an interview in Inner Mongolia that the multilateral trading market is based on the premise of not changing the current price structure of the electricity classification catalog and not changing the current price difference between the grid companies. Declaring a floating price spread, and temporarily limiting the market price fluctuation by ±20%. "By conducting price spread, the linkage between sales price and on-grid price can be realized; through the linkage between on-grid price of power generation company and the price of the user's main product, the interaction between large-scale users and power generation companies can be realized; through the supply and demand of electricity, price signals can guide the consumption of electricity. Electric power construction investment.” Cheng Xianming, former director of Inner Mongolia Power Multilateral Trading Center, briefed reporters.

It is understood that in 2002, the State Council issued the “Power System Reform Plan” (Guofa [2002] No. 5), which explicitly proposed the establishment of a competitive, open regional power market and implemented a new electricity pricing mechanism. A reporter from the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, who declined to be named, said in an interview with reporters that according to the original national power reform plan, by the end of the “10th Five-Year Plan”, the regional power market was basically established. However, to this day, the progress of regional power market construction is slow, and the distance from the real market is very large. “The pilots of direct power supply for power generation companies and large users in the region have not been effectively rolled out, and they have not been able to change the pattern of exclusive power purchases by power grid companies. ”

Since 2004, the Northeast Power Market, East China Power Market, and South Power Market have started trials one after another, but the transaction power is very low and they all died shortly afterwards. “In 2004, the first regional power market was piloted in the northeast. At that time, relevant departments planned to carry out trials of bilateral trading between power generation companies and large users. However, the transaction volume in the northeastern regional power market was very small, and the actual amount of competitive power in the regional power market was not. To 20%, it can be seen that the relevant departments are cautious about implementing the regional power market.” A personage from the State Electricity Regulatory Commission who participated in the construction of the Northeast Electricity Market all told the “Economic Information Daily” reporter.

In addition, local interests are also a problem facing the regional electricity market reform. According to the above-mentioned sources, even in different provinces and cities in the northeast region, there are differences of position. “Heilongjiang Power Province is very enthusiastic about establishing a regional power market. Liaoning Province, which uses electricity, is more cautious about the regional power market.” This reporter learned that East China Power At the time of the trial of the market, Anhui, Fujian, and other places have different interests from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.

An important factor in choosing the regional power market in the northeast is the relative surplus of power in the Northeast in the context of tight national power balance. “This ensures that at the beginning of the pilot launch of bilateral transactions in the Northeast electricity market, centralized bidding will allow the on-grid tariffs to be in a downward aisle, which will also protect the interests of power grid companies. However, the subsequent increase in coal prices has led to an increase in the online bidding price of power plants in Northeast China. The 'reservoir' that buffers the impact of electricity price fluctuations on power grid companies has not played its former role," said the Supervisor of the Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Due to the above reasons, there have been such phenomena in the trials of the Northeast Electricity Market. In the northeastern power grid region, the north generates high electricity prices and the south sells electricity at a low price, causing the Northeast Power Grid Company to lose RMB 3.2 billion in 16 days.

The power supply structure, economic development status, and market concepts in different parts of the country are different. At the same time, it is difficult to initiate power market reforms. However, there are many local conditions that are similar to Inner Mongolia. These regions are paying attention to the Inner Mongolia pilot. Professor Zhang Ge, assistant to the President of North China Electric Power University, told reporters that the electricity supply in the northeastern market is also relatively loose. If Liaoning is used as a core market, Heilongjiang can sell electricity to Liaoning and it can promote Inner Mongolia’s multilateral trading model. In addition, if we can achieve more large-scale cross-regional power sales, the rules of the Inner Mongolia multilateral trading market can be extended to a wider range, such as Beijing Power's self-sufficiency rate is only about 30%, but if you can purchase electricity from Inner Mongolia, Northeast China, The mode of multilateral trading in Inner Mongolia Electric Power can also be applied.

However, doubts about the above ideas still exist. Recently, Liu Jin, chairman of Inner Mongolia Electric Power Group Corporation, said in an interview with reporters that the promotion of multilateral power trading, "electricity" is a prerequisite. At present, Inner Mongolia's "electricity" is serious, and there is a lack of access to the outside, so it is appropriate to implement multilateral transactions. If electricity is used for electricity, power generation companies will not have the incentive to sell electricity at a low price. Therefore, the practice of multilateral trading has its own particularities.

In addition, the industry is skeptical that Inner Mongolia can resist the pressure of rising electricity prices that may occur in the future. “Because of the low coal cost, the Inner Mongolian multilateral trading market has not experienced a shortage of power supply and an increase in on-grid electricity prices since its trial last year. Once the price of electricity in the Inner Mongolian market has risen as much as the Northeast market, can large enterprise users accept it? The rise in residential electricity prices has pushed up the local CPI?” said a CLP official.

The reporter had heard this concern during the investigation in Inner Mongolia recently. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Economic and Information Committee admitted to reporters that due to the increase in demand for electricity within the autonomous region, Inner Mongolia will usher in a tight balance of power within five years.