The five largest power generation groups have lost more than 60 billion yuan in generating capacity for 3 years

Coal power prices upside down make thermal power companies "heartless"

The China Electricity Regulatory Commission warned that there may be a large area of ​​power cuts this summer. Yu Yanshan, deputy director of the State Electricity Regulatory Office, said on the 5th that if the situation of incoming water is not good and the sustained losses of thermal power companies are not changed, the summer peak will not be changed. It is very likely that power cuts will occur in large areas.

Recently, there have been power cuts in some parts of the country, and the central China region has placed more emphasis. In addition, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi, Hunan, and Qinghai all have certain coal shortages.

Previously, some analysts believed that the installed capacity of coal-fired power was insufficient and could not cope with the sharp increase in electricity demand caused by the rise of high-capacity-energy industries in the first quarter. This was the main reason for the early arrival of power shortages.

Yu Yanshan denied this claim. He said that the current tight supply of electricity is not caused by insufficient capacity of the power companies. The installed capacity of thermal power generation in China is still at a high level. The problem is that the production enthusiasm of thermal power companies is affected, and the hours of power generation utilization are at a low level.

The high rate of repairs that occurred in some areas during the electricity shortage period confirms this claim. When interviewed by the Hunan Provincial Power Company of the National Grid in Hunan Province, the reporter of the “Economic Information Daily” learned that the province's total installed thermal power capacity was 14.17 million kilowatts, but only 7 million kilowatts were available for output. More than half of thermal power installations were shut down. Most of them are in maintenance.

In addition, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission provided inspections of the major province of power generation in Henan Province. The installed capacity of thermal power in Henan Province exceeded 50 million kilowatts, but there are now more than 12 million kilowatts installed.

A person from a power company in Hunan explained to the reporter of the “Economic Information Daily” that there are many reasons for overhauling. “Recently, the state has imposed some restrictions on coal prices, and many coal provinces have made a lot of restrictions on coal output, and Hunan has transferred The coal was sluggish; secondly, due to the substantial losses of thermal power companies, the debt ratio of many companies was higher than 100%, and banks reluctantly relied on loans for electricity companies and almost no working capital to purchase coal. This resulted in the current situation of coal shortages."

Assistant Professor Zhang Pei, assistant to the President of North China Electric Power University, said that in the tight electric power phase, a higher repair rate is not normal in one area. “In foreign power open markets, some power plants will join together to reduce the power supply under the name of maintenance, causing the market to be in short supply. The situation then increased the sales price. Although the amount of electricity generated was reduced, it increased profits."

A veteran of the power industry, who declined to be named, said that in general, thermal power companies should arrange repairs as little as possible when electricity is tight. In the current power shortage of such a large number of thermal power units to repair, there are idle production capacity waiting for the country again suspected of price increases.

A number of industry experts said in an interview that the large-scale loss of thermal power companies in the past two years shows that the unreasonable price mechanism for thermal coal will only make the thermal power companies' enthusiasm for generating electricity less and less.

Power generation groups, especially thermal power companies, have been stuck in operating mud in recent years. The "2010 Power Supervision Report" revealed that since 2008, the cumulative losses of the five largest power generation groups in China (Hua Neng, Datang, Huadian, Guodian, and China Power Investment) for three consecutive years have all exceeded 8.5 billion yuan, and the combined losses have reached more than 60 billion yuan. yuan.

Tan Rongji, spokesperson of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, said that the rise in coal prices in recent years, combined with an increase in financial costs, has directly affected the survival and development of downstream power generation companies.

“The more we make now, the more we lose.” said a person in the fuel department of the Big Five power generation group.

The industry generally believes that due to the lack of a good geographic pricing mechanism, the price of thermal coal has continued to rise, and the on-grid tariffs have been rising slowly. As a result, the thermal power output in some provinces is obviously insufficient. In the long-term perspective, it is necessary to reform and improve the current pricing mechanism.

Zhang said that in the current situation of high price pressures, simply raising the price of electricity or suppressing coal prices is a temporary solution. "We should strengthen demand-side management, and at the same time strengthen inter-regional and inter-provincial power dispatching, and play a role in regional electricity market adjustment." (Reporter Shi Zhiliang Zhou Nan)