Electric power is not only an important basic industry and public utility related to the national economy and people's livelihood, but also an important part of the national economy and the center of energy industry. Along with the reform and opening up, since the 1980s, China's electric power system reform has gone through the stages of fund-raising, separation of government and enterprise, separation of power plant and power grid and deepening reform, as well as a new round of electric power system reform marked by the release of Zhongfa No.9 document. Standing at the historical node of re starting of reform and opening up, it is necessary to summarize the experience of China's power system reform and look forward to the future development prospects.

Successful experience of electric power system reform in China

Looking back on the course of China's electric power system reform, we can conclude that there are three distinctive experiences worth remembering: adhering to the national conditions and forming the mode of electric power reform with Chinese characteristics. Foreign power system reform has its own characteristics of political system and development stage of power industry. China does not simply copy the foreign "broken" reform mode, but adopts the mode of "controlling the middle and opening both ends" to ensure the long-term sustainable and reliable power supply. At present, China's installed capacity, power grid scale and power consumption of the whole society rank the top in the world, and the problem of power consumption of the population without electricity has been comprehensively solved by the end of 2015. No matter from which angle, it can be said that China has created a world miracle in the power industry.

Adhere to the problem orientation, find the right breakthrough, and steadily advance the pilot project first. In 2002, the No.5 document issued by the State Council of the people's Republic of China promoted the net output level of the power industry by 11.2% through the institutional reform of "separation of power plant and power grid, separation of main power and auxiliary power", entered the fast lane of development, and basically met the demand of "using electricity". With the economic development entering a new stage, Zhongfa No.9 document was issued in 2015. On the basis of the consensus of all parties, the reform tasks were orderly, effectively and steadily promoted, the pilot scope of transmission and distribution price reform was gradually expanded, and the major reform issues such as the opening of incremental distribution, the construction of power market, and the establishment of relatively independent trading institutions were carried out first and then gradually, so as to provide the people with the opportunity to "use electricity" ”The transformation to "make good use of electricity" provides strong support for the national economy and society from "rapid development" to "high-quality development".

Adhere to the market orientation and release vitality in deepening reform. From the sporadic exploration since 2002 to the annual market-oriented electricity trading of 1632.4 billion kwh in 2017, accounting for 25.9% of the total social electricity consumption, it has entered the stage of accelerated expansion. By the end of April 2018, the national development and Reform Commission and the national energy administration had approved 292 pilot projects for the second and third batch of incremental distribution liberalization, with more than 2500 registered power sales companies nationwide. The new energy consumption has achieved remarkable results. In 2017, the State Grid Corporation of China absorbed 49.2 billion kwh of new energy across provinces through large power grids and large markets, with a year-on-year growth of 35.6%. Among them, nearly 7 billion kwh of "three abandoned" electricity was reduced through cross regional surplus renewable energy spot trading.

Several key points to be grasped in future power system reform

At present, the comprehensive promotion of power system reform has entered a new stage. From the perspective of promotion tasks, market construction, transmission and distribution price, and power distribution reform are still the key points; from the perspective of development goals, efforts will be made to build a fully configured, efficient, clean, low-carbon, flexible, interactive, stable and orderly market system. The reform of electric power system will touch more deep-seated problems, and the exploration and complexity will be more prominent. Breaking the barriers between provinces, improving the trading system, playing the role of the market to promote the consumption of clean energy, cultivating multiple subjects, and improving the regulatory capacity will become the "nose" to further promote the reform of electricity.

- break down barriers between provinces and remove institutional barriers.

It is a long-term and arduous task to implement the national energy strategy and promote clean energy consumption and large-scale optimal allocation of energy resources. Therefore, China should focus on building the power market, remove market barriers, and promote full competition and efficient allocation of power. At present, due to the influence of the fiscal, taxation and administrative management system in which the province is the entity, and the balance of electric power mainly depends on the province, the inter provincial barriers exist in varying degrees. Some local governments strictly control the provincial purchased electricity and administratively intervene in the inter provincial transaction price, which restricts the full and efficient allocation of resources.

The key to break the barriers between provinces is to give full play to the role of market mechanism and improve the efficiency and quality of resource allocation. The specific measures include: first, expanding the trading space and frequency between provinces. We should liberalize the power generation and consumption plan between provinces and the right of consumers to choose between provinces, gradually relax the access threshold for consumers to purchase electricity between provinces that meet the requirements of national policies such as environmental protection and energy conservation, increase the frequency of direct transactions between provinces, and reduce the administrative intervention of local governments. The second is to innovate the incentive and compensation mechanism. The incentive mechanism on the generation side is established to compensate the generator units whose interests are damaged by inter provincial power generation rights and auxiliary service transactions; the benefit sharing mechanism for the receiving provinces is innovated, and the dividends generated by inter provincial transactions are compensated by the sending provinces according to the negotiation results, so as to mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of local governments; We will promote the implementation of the renewable energy quota system and promote the inter provincial consumption of renewable energy.

-- improve the trading system and improve the efficiency of market operation.

In the past, under the traditional mode, the transaction object of power market was relatively single and the content was relatively simple. With the continuous expansion of China's electricity trading scale, the increase of market members, the richness of trading varieties and the complexity of trading modes, higher requirements are put forward for market construction.

To further improve the trading system and support the orderly operation of the market, the specific measures include: first, clarify the spot mode and formulate market rules. According to the supply and demand situation of each province, market subject consciousness, market environment, technical support system conditions and other factors, the spot mode should be reasonably determined according to local conditions, and the corresponding market rules should be established and improved. Second, do a good job in the connection of all kinds of transactions. Taking inter provincial trading as a breakthrough, we should promote the establishment of a city wide market-oriented trading mechanism including medium and long-term spot trading; optimize the power trading process to ensure the connection and connection of different time scales and different subject transactions; improve the balance mechanism, settlement mechanism and information disclosure mechanism to improve the trading transparency and operational efficiency.

-- adhere to multi-dimensional policies to promote clean energy consumption.

With the rapid development of new energy in China, the state attaches great importance to the construction of ecological civilization. For a long time, the rigid implementation of thermal power generation plan has occupied the power generation space of new energy, the reasonable compensation mechanism of peak shaving power supply is not perfect, the inter provincial and inter regional consumption policy and the electricity price mechanism are not perfect and other market-oriented mechanisms lack problems, which restrict the consumption of new energy to a certain extent.

The specific measures include: first, establish and improve the trans regional and trans provincial new energy electricity trading market. In the near future, the province mainly focuses on indemnificatory acquisition, and the provinces absorb the surplus new energy through medium and long-term transactions such as new energy direct transaction, power generation right transaction, and replacement transaction. The surplus new energy in the "three north areas" with prominent contradiction in consumption can be further exploited through inter Provincial incremental spot. Second, gradually enhance the role of market mechanism. With the improvement of spot market, capacity market and ancillary service market, we should give full play to the advantage of low marginal cost of clean energy power generation in the bidding market, and achieve priority scheduling and consumption through "market competition + government regulation"; We should optimize the interruptible electricity price and peak valley electricity price mechanism, improve the incentive level for users, improve the load characteristics, and increase the willingness and enthusiasm of load resources to absorb new energy.

-- cultivate multiple subjects and stimulate the dynamic vitality of the end.

With the development and progress of economy and society, the power demand of users has changed from "using electricity" to "using electricity well". How to meet the needs of users and social capital for reform dividend and personalized service has become an important goal of the new round of power system reform.

The specific measures include: first, building a competitive pattern of multiple power distribution entities. We should ensure the right of users to choose, speed up the access of all kinds of qualified electricity sellers, promote diversified electricity sellers to subdivide customers, formulate differentiated value-added service schemes, build our own comparative advantages, and meet customers' differentiated service needs through more professional and higher input-output efficiency. Second, incremental distribution business. Through the introduction of social capital to promote service innovation. We should seek to solve the big common divisor of all parties' differences, promote the incremental distribution reform in accordance with the law and regulations, determine the owners of pilot projects fairly and fairly, develop the distribution business in the way of mixed ownership, promote all relevant subjects to give full play to their professional advantages, give full play to the mechanism flexibility and innovation vitality of social capital, and innovate in many aspects such as management mechanism and operation mode. We will continue to improve the level of high-quality services by adopting comprehensive energy services such as distributed generation, comprehensive supply of "hydropower, gas and heat" and energy efficiency management, as well as service mode and business model innovation such as financial leasing, so that more reform dividends can benefit users.

-- enhance regulatory capacity and ensure orderly progress of reform.

With the deepening of power system reform, the regulatory mode and regulatory focus will change, and the complexity and difficulty of regulation will increase, which puts forward higher requirements for the regulatory strength, standardization and scientificity of the power market. At present, the electric power law and other relevant policies and regulations are still in the process of revision. After streamlining administration and delegating powers, the interface is unclear, which can not meet the needs of market development.

The specific measures include: first, clarify the responsibility interface and build an efficient regulatory mechanism. Clarify the responsibility interfaces of the national level, local governments and local agencies in the formulation of rules and plans, operation supervision and handling of violations in the supervision of various reform tasks. Improve the regulatory mechanism system, improve the trading order, market power, violations, market operation status and potential risks and other aspects of the regulatory mechanism. We should establish a closed-loop supervision effect, improve the mechanism, ensure that the supervision plays a full role, and implement various punishment and optimization measures in place, so as to create conditions for fair competition among market players. The second is to establish scientific supervision means and methods. We should build a scientific supervision and evaluation method for various reform tasks, establish a strict incentive and punishment mechanism, give preferential treatment to the subject operating according to law in terms of credit guarantee, transaction achievement and incremental distribution owner selection, give full incentives, and increase punishment for abusing market power and malicious conspiracy to manipulate the market.