China News Service, Nanjing, October 16 (Feng Lingling) "After the victory of the revolution, we will give the villagers a 'little sun'."
In 1934, when this promise was made in Ruijin, Jiangxi, people in southern Jiangxi were still using pine Mingzi for lighting. More than ninety years later, this reporter traveled to Jiangxi, Guizhou and Chongqing with the SPIC Group’s “New Long March for Electric Power” media group and saw what the “Little Sun” looks like today.
An old power station illuminates a land
Shangyoujiang Hydropower Station has been standing in Shangyou County, Jiangxi Province for 69 years. Fang Zhi, director of the Shangyou Maintenance Inspection Center and party branch secretary of the SPIC Shangyoujiang Power Plant, took reporters into the power plant where the four units were still operating. "During this year's flood season, the power plant successfully responded to nine floods, with a maximum peak flow of 2,190 cubic meters per second," he said. "The total storage capacity of 822 million cubic meters protects Anlan in the Ganjiang River Basin."
This old power station has a more direct impact on the local economy. Yangming Lake, formed by damming the power plant and impounding water, is now a national 4A-level scenic spot. It receives more than one million tourists every year, driving the rise of the surrounding cultural tourism industry. The formation of the tungsten mining and rare earth new material industry cluster in southern Jiangxi is supported by the power of this power station. The industrial relics from the "First Five-Year Plan" period in the factory area are now used as a carrier for red education and industrial heritage revitalization. Every year, hydropower colleagues and surrounding school organizations come here to visit.
"The power station must not only generate good electricity, but also serve local economic development." Fang Zhi said that as of this year, the power plant has delivered a total of 16.08 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity and has been operating safely for more than 12,000 days. From hydropower alone to the integration of water, wind, solar and storage, the total installed capacity of Shangyoujiang Power Plant has reached 1.15 million kilowatts, 19 times that of when the plant was first built.
The “new ledger” brought by wind turbines
From southern Jiangxi to the west, it enters Jinsha County, Guizhou.
On the ridge of Datian Township, nine wind turbines are rotating in the wind. "Full capacity will be connected to the grid on June 29 this year. It is expected that the average annual power generation will be 102.7 million kilowatt-hours and the annual carbon reduction will be 80,500 tons." According to Guo Houliang, vice chairman of Guizhou Jinyuan of the State Power Investment Corporation, as the main force in the "West-to-East Power Transmission", Guizhou Jinyuan Electric Power has a total installed capacity of 19.52 million kilowatts, with clean energy installed capacity accounting for 57%. The scale of thermal power, photovoltaics, and energy storage ranks first in the province, with a cumulative power generation of more than 890 billion kilowatt-hours.
During the interview, the reporter discovered that Guizhou Jinyuan’s green transformation is not simply “launching new projects.” Liutang Coal and Power Project is located at the old site of "Daguxinchang". Two 660,000-kilowatt high-efficiency ultra-supercritical "W" flame boiler units are being built on this land. On the same land, the construction of a 660,000-kilowatt unit of the second phase of the Chayuan Power Plant started in April this year, converting coal transportation into electricity transmission.
This attitude of “coexistence of old and new” is exactly the true aspect of energy transformation in old districts.
Guo Houliang introduced that Guizhou Jinyuan’s thermal power installed capacity ranks first in the province. At the same time, the proportion of clean energy installed capacity has reached 57%, and the scale of photovoltaic and energy storage also leads the province. "Guizhou Jinyuan insists on the seven major industries of the 'thermal, water, wind, solar, storage and charging network' to move towards greening and digital intelligence simultaneously. It does not simply shut down thermal power, but allows traditional power sources to play a bottom-up role in peak shaving and ensuring supply, while focusing new investments on wind power, photovoltaics and energy storage."
The same path is also unfolding in Hechuan, Chongqing. State Power Investment Group Chongqing Hechuan Power Generation Co., Ltd. has four coal-fired machines with an installed capacity of 1.92 million kilowatts and a cumulative power generation of over 100 billion kilowatt hours. It is the northern energy base planned by the Chongqing Municipal Government. In July 2023, a 240MW/480MWh new energy storage power station will be built here, which can store 480,000 kWh of electricity in 2 hours, meeting the peak hour electricity demand of 280,000 residents. The joint operation of thermal power and energy storage is promoting the company's transformation from single power generation to "generation + regulation + comprehensive energy".
The invisible "texture" controls the visible electricity
If green electricity is the “background” of energy transformation along the Long March, then digital intelligence technology is the invisible “texture”.
At the State Power Investment Corporation’s Gui’an base in Guizhou, the reporter saw a highly integrated “energy brain.” Guizhou Jinyuan Production and Operation Center, New Energy Production and Operation Center, Hydropower Centralized Control Center, Safety and Environmental Protection Supervision Center, and Emergency Command Center have achieved integrated and coordinated operation, covering thermal power, hydropower, new energy, and comprehensive energy sectors.
"One platform unifies the industry, one system ensures safety, and one set of data ensures precise decision-making." The relevant person in charge of Guizhou Jinyuan Production and Operation Center told reporters that this system uniformly accesses the operating data of thermal power, hydropower, and new energy stations scattered throughout Guizhou. Operators can complete operation monitoring, fault warning, and collaborative processing on one platform. In the past, tasks that required multiple factories and stations to monitor separately are now concentrated in Gui'an.
Walking into the centralized control room of Jinsha Chayuan Power Plant, the operating parameters of the unit are scrolling in real time on the large screen. On the steam turbine platform, the intelligent inspection robot operates autonomously along the preset track. From Gui'an New Area to Jinsha, from mountain ridges lined with wind turbines to thermal power construction sites, digital and intelligent systems are changing the way traditional energy production is organized.
Looking back at this route from southern Gansu to northern Guizhou and western Chongqing, these projects together constitute an energy transformation path from traditional hydropower to multi-energy complementation, from single supply guarantee to digital intelligent dispatch. They are turning the "little sun" from a lamp into a network, and from the memory of one generation to the foundation under the feet of the next generation.
