Recently, the reporter learned from the relevant personnel of the Chinese Academy of Electric Power that the national standard for wind power grid connection technology drafted jointly by the China Electricity Council and the China National Electric Power Longyuan Group has been reported to the Electricity Regulatory Commission and will be in mid-late April. After final approval, it will be announced to the public. According to the source, the new standard will replace the “Technical Regulations on the Integration of Wind Farms into Power Grids” published by the State Grid in 2009, and add new technical requirements for the integration of wind turbines and wind farms into the power grid, such as dynamic reactive power/active compensation technology. And low voltage ride through technology.

Analysts believe that the introduction of the new national standard on grid will increase the operating costs of wind turbine manufacturers and wind farm operators. In addition, due to the improvement of industry entry barriers brought about by the introduction of standards, it may accelerate the integration trend in the wind power industry, especially in the manufacturing industry.

Improving Manufacturing and Operating Costs In recent years, wind power grid connection problems have plagued the industry. Therefore, the related grid-connected technical standards have also continued to attract the attention of the industry. In particular, the requirements of the “need to have low-voltage ride through technology and dynamic reactive power compensation technology” proposed by the power grid to ensure the safe and stable operation of wind power grid connection have even been raised. The dispute between the power supply and the grid, represented by the unit manufacturer and the wind farm operator, is "whether or not it is necessary to have it."

Low-voltage ride-through means that when the grid fails or disturbance causes the voltage of the wind farm's grid point to fall, the wind turbine can be connected to the grid in a constant voltage range, thus gaining time for the self-regulation of the grid. This technology is The grid side believes it is the greatest guarantee for improving the safety and stability of the power grid. However, the power supply side believes that the current problem of wind power grid connection is more serious than the attitude that the grid does not actively accept wind power, and it does not have much to do with whether the unit has this technology. In fact, the excuse of this technology from the unit manufacturers is more from the consideration of cost control. According to a domestic manufacturer, the installation of low-voltage traversing technology facilities will increase the cost of at least 200,000 yuan per unit. The new national standard requires wind farms to have real-time wind power forecasting capabilities. This requirement will increase the cost of nearly 600,000 yuan per domestic wind farm.

The introduction of new grid-connected national standards, while setting the tone for this debate, also means that it will directly increase the cost of the midstream links in the industrial chain of the wind power industry.

Industry competition bid farewell to "price war"

This increase in costs, according to authoritative wind power expert Shi Pengfei, the deeper impact is because of the improvement of the technical threshold, will bring deep integration of the industry. In an interview with reporters, he said that on the one hand, the current market price of a unit is more than 10 million yuan, and the cost of adding 200,000 yuan per unit is not too much. Especially for leading companies such as Sinovel Wind Power and Goldwind, which have an annual installed capacity of more than 1,000 units, the impact is even more limited. “But for the new enter companies like XuJian Wind Power and Shengu, the installed capacity is only a few or dozens of new ones, the impact is mostly.” Shi Pengfei said that in view of this analysis, the future market will distinguish unit cost performance in addition to quality and In addition to the cost, there will be more metrics such as “with or without low-voltage ride-through technology and dynamic reactive power compensation technology”.

In recent years, the domestic manufacturers engaged in wind power machine manufacturing have expanded rapidly. The blind expansion of the market has once triggered the oversupply of excess capacity. Under the fierce competition, many domestic manufacturers have made efforts to cut prices. The whole production cost was once 6500 yuan/kW in 2008. It fell to 5,400 yuan/kilowatt in 2009 until it was less than 4,000 yuan/kilowatt at the end of last year. In this regard, Shi Pengfei pointed out that due to the recent rapid increase in the prices of domestic and international raw materials, the room for price reduction of domestic wind turbines will become very limited in the future. With the country's shift from a focus on scale to a focus on quality in the development of the wind power industry, the competition among enterprises will go deeper.

This may mean that the era before the domestic wind turbine manufacturers continued to cut prices to expand market share may be terminated. Instead, “grid-friendly” units that reflect the good performance of the grid connection are favored by the market.