A Great Migration of Energy
In eastern China, nearly 70% of the population and over 80% of economic activity are concentrated, but the energy that drives economic activity is mostly buried in the west, separated by thousands of kilometers. The cross regional transportation of energy is an old problem that troubles the world's second largest economy. How to solve this old problem? The answer given by Datong is to build a three-dimensional energy supply network that goes from heaven to earth.
Please remove coal from the site
Let's delve deeper into the geological layers. At an average depth of 500 meters below the surface, coal seams that have been dormant for millions of years are being awakened. 59 coal mines in the city are operating simultaneously, and every day, 328800 tons of "black stones" can be seen again.
West to East Coal Transportation
Before they had a chance to feel the free air, the black stones were invited into individual rooms with less than 140 cubic meters and sent to Qinhuangdao Port, 653 kilometers away. There, they were loaded and unloaded onto countless cargo ships of various sizes, rapidly decomposing and spreading like nerve endings to every corner of East and South China that urgently needed energy.
West to East Power Transmission
Let's look up, above this winding 653 kilometer railway is a 500 kV high-voltage line, which is a magic of instant transfer. It gathers 1.8 million kilowatts of photovoltaic and wind power, and it only takes 1/36 seconds to reach Huai'an directly from Datong. It is a "super highway" carrying Yanhuai DC power transmission, spanning thousands of miles, lighting up things!
The starting point is "Datong", and the ending point is "Different". On a geographical scale, the energy here bears their respective missions and rushes towards the mountains and seas!
Location: JD
Host: Mayor Ren, hello. Datong is a major energy city in our province, and building five major bases is an important lever for carrying out energy revolution and comprehensive reform pilot projects. So, as for Datong, which aspects of these five bases are our leading advantages?
Ren Xijie (Standing Committee Member and Executive Vice Mayor of Datong City): This year, the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government have entrusted Datong City with a significant historical mission of integrating into the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region and building a bridgehead. We firmly shoulder this responsibility, take the energy revolution as a breakthrough, vigorously promote the green development and utilization of coal, and continue to consolidate the comparative advantage of the power transmission base. At present, the advanced coal production capacity in the city has exceeded 90%. Based on this, we adhere to the work concept of "integrating wind, solar, water, fire, and hydrogen storage", and comprehensively accelerate the high-quality development of the new energy industry. The total installed capacity of electricity in the city is 16.47 million kilowatts, of which 8.32 million kilowatts, accounting for more than 50%. We have achieved the goal of the 14th Five Year Plan three years ahead of schedule, In addition, we have also actively explored the construction of coal based and coal chemical bases, and have achieved some beneficial results.
Amazing Wisdom Tower Mountain!
Everyone has played the game of Gold Miner when they were young, and your main mission is to grab gold and diamonds. So have you ever thought about what high-tech miners are currently using to mine "black gold".
Building in the trees, people in the green, and mines in the park, it's hard to imagine that this park like place is actually a mine!
Welcome to Tashan Smart Mine! The coal reserves of Tashan Mine are 213510 tons, and the biggest feature is that the thickest part of the coal seam reaches 20 meters. It should be noted that safe and efficient mining technology for ultra thick coal seams above 14 meters is a global challenge. Your task is to find a way to mine extremely thick coal seams and find "deep-sea sunken ships"!
The real-time playback on these large screens is the underground operation status. Follow our transport vehicle and take a look at the underground simulation maze! On this 2 kilometer long and 200 meter wide coal mining face, there are over 60 cameras and over 1500 sensors installed. Under the unified scheduling of 5G base stations underground, hyperspectral coal gangue is automatically identified in real-time, and laser scanning is used to monitor the amount of coal released. Continuing forward, the centralized control center will operate with fewer people and build a new intelligent mining model that integrates comprehensive perception, 5G transmission, autonomous decision-making, and collaborative control. The high-speed uploading of device data and real-time issuance of control information, with a control delay of no more than 500 milliseconds, extend human visual and auditory senses to the working face, and monitor safety production in an immersive manner.
The host returns to reality: 5G full coverage is equivalent to equipping underground mines with sharp eyes and versatile hands, but what are the tools that can be used?
Sun Lei (Secretary of Tashan Mine R&D Center): It's amazing. This is a coal mine hazardous gas inspection robot. When encountering danger underground and people cannot go down, we send it in to facilitate our subsequent work.
Host: Good science fiction! How do we mine extra thick coal seams?
Sun Lei: Let me introduce you to two magic weapons. Firstly, the 9-arm excavator anchor integrated machine is equipped with fast excavation equipment. It has three heads and six arms like Nezha, with one dedicated to drilling the top middle eye and two dedicated to drilling the bottom rod. In addition, an airborne water exploration drilling rig has been designed and added to achieve on-site water exploration operations. One person can perform multiple tasks, increasing efficiency by 40%, and the daily excavation speed can reach 20 meters!
Host: So the digging has become faster, what's the luck?
Sun Lei: This is the second magic weapon I mentioned, which is the foundation less belt conveyor and permanent magnet synchronous electric drum technology. It combines the electric motor, reducer, and drum into one, with small size, easy installation, high transmission efficiency, and maintenance free. It saves us millions of dollars every year.
Host: With these two independently developed magic weapons, rolling black gold leaves the underground and is continuously transported to the ground along the belt. It hardly stops at Datong and directly boards the train on the Daqin Line.
Daqin Railway: Running from Coal Sea to Sea
The Great Qin Thousand Mile Journey began at Datong Hudong Station, with a 10000 ton train departing every 12 minutes, with nearly a hundred trains departing every day. Since the beginning of summer, the daily transportation volume has reached over 1.2 million tons.
Host: How can we ensure that so many overloaded trains can connect, gather, and disperse to the maximum extent while ensuring safety? We also need an efficient, efficient, and highly efficient perfect collaboration.
Ren Fuzhen (duty officer at Hudong Station on the Daqin Railway): 852563 preview, correct, execute.
Ren Fuzhen: There are too many cars and the traffic is too dense. We need about 20 programs to pick up and send out each train, and the average time between each program is about 10 seconds. The connection is very important.
The responsibility of the Daqin Line is significant, with over 1000 tons of coal being transported less for every minute of delay. Only with precise coordination between people and vehicles can the safety and stability of energy transportation be ensured.
Host: The driver who climbed up the cockpit through the ladder is the driver of the Daqin Line. They are the most familiar with this supply line, and they understand every carriage, every track, every departure and arrival here.
He Xiaodong (Daqin Heavy Load Driver at Hudong Electric Power Depot): Train 73019 departs from Hudong Second Yard on track 17. The driver understands.
He Xiaodong (Daqin Heavy Load Driver at Hudong Electric Power Depot): With a brake handle weighing a thousand pounds, I have been traveling on the Daqin Line with my 600 comrades and comrades every day to ensure safety and transportation, and to transport energy to various parts of the country.
Host: Only they can drive this 2600 meter long, 20000 ton heavy-duty train winding from the coal sea to the sea under the escort of the dispatch room.
The weight of the Great Qin Dynasty is not just about creating a legend of transportation volume figures. It bears the responsibility of producing coal for the six major power grids, five power generation groups, ten steel companies, and tens of thousands of industrial and mining enterprises in China, as well as the production and daily coal for more than ten provinces, cities, and autonomous regions. It is an energy source, a guarantee of supply, the foundation of China's economic development, and a miracle of the world's heavy-duty railway transportation.
Host: That's why as we watch heavy trains leave the station entrance and gradually move away along the tracks, we feel not a farewell, but a connection.
Host: But there are actually more than one way to connect. Looking up, this is an ultra-high voltage power transmission channel, known as the "super highway" of electricity. The current is traveling between cities at a speed of nearly 300000 kilometers per second.
Location: Datong Xinrong (Dingya) Substation
Ren Xijie: Currently, 1.8 million kilowatts of new energy are running online. This power transmission and transformation project has been put into use, greatly solving the problem of increasing the output of new energy in the northwest region of Datong. The energy track is of utmost importance. Currently, we are making every effort in the city to build a 1000 kV ultra-high voltage transmission and transformation project from Datong to Huailai. This project is a necessary part of the Jinbei New Energy Base, and its implementation can effectively solve the problem of Datong's ability to export new and traditional energy. After the completion of this transmission and transformation line, it will conservatively provide stable new energy indicators of 100 billion kilowatt hours of electricity to the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region every year, and play a crucial role in the stable supply of power and the optimization of power structure in the North China power grid.
Host: So why has power transmission become an important direction for Datong's energy transformation?
Ren Xijie: In the past, we used to export coal, and then coal was converted into electricity. You want the Daqin Railway to be over 650 kilometers long. If you don't consider technical parking or unloading, you can run it for at least 10 hours in one direction. But if we turn coal into electricity, it will take only a few seconds to transmit it from Datong to all parts of the country. So you see, it's very time efficient. Moreover, electricity is an efficient, clean, convenient, and low-carbon energy source, so turning coal transmission into electricity transmission is a win-win and win-win situation.
Last year, it was 55 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. Datong sent me a message saying that they used 15 billion kilowatt hours and 40 billion kilowatt hours to go out. Among the 55 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, nearly 10 billion kilowatt hours were generated by new energy, with the majority being 9.75 billion kilowatt hours. You want 9.75 billion kilowatt hours of electricity to account for nearly 29% of the total power generation, which is advanced in the province and the whole country. The country requires a target of 30% by 2035. Do you think this year, from 2023, we have already achieved our goal 12 years ahead of schedule.
Store "energy"
The towering chimneys and rolling white smoke are commonplace for every Datong person, which used to be the past of Datong First Thermal Power Plant. But now, the largest new energy storage power station in Shanxi, Wangning Energy Storage Power Station, has been built on the old site of the thermal power plant, fully utilizing the retired site and transmission facilities to build energy storage. This is not only an alternation between "new" and "old", but also a combination of "strong" and "strong".
The Wangning Energy Storage Power Station is currently the first energy storage power station in Shanxi to complete full capacity grid connection. It adopts a fully outdoor prefabricated cabin design and is equipped with a Ningde Times 1500V high-pressure liquid cooled lithium iron phosphate energy storage system. The overall conversion efficiency of the system is more than 90%, higher than the industry average level.
Li Yanfei (Energy Storage Technology Expert of State Grid Era): With over 7000 battery cells, it takes two hours to fully charge this container. With over 6700 kilowatt hours of electricity, it can last for an ordinary household for 5 years.
Location: Inside the car
Host: Mayor Ren, during our research, we learned that Datong has advantages in coal green development and utilization bases and power transmission bases. At the same time, Datong has also made a lot of efforts in the transformation of coal based technological innovation achievements. What have we done specifically?
Ren Xijie: We will go to the Datong Branch of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is also the Institute of Clean and Efficient Utilization of Coal Research in Datong. We will get the answer there.
Host: Let's take a look together.
Ren Xijie: Okay.
Host: This is the Datong Coal Research Institute, which is also the test base of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but this base is unusual. A pilot study is being conducted intensively in the six story high space of Datong Coal Research Institute. This is the largest pilot research base for clean and efficient utilization of coal in China, as well as a pilot base for clean and efficient combustion and gasification of coal in Shanxi Province. The pilot platform here mainly focuses on three research directions: clean, efficient and flexible combustion of coal, classification and utilization of coal, and utilization of carbon based solid waste resources. All of them are designed and constructed according to international first-class standards. Through the technology proven through experimentation, we are now moving towards the vast north and south of our motherland.
Porcelain is a typical representative of China's splendid culture. In the thousand year history of porcelain firing in Jingdezhen, the firewood kiln was once in an absolute dominant position for a long time. Coal kilns only briefly appeared between the 1950s and 1970s, lasting for more than 20 years, and then became the world of gas kilns and electric kilns. However, for building ceramics with a huge demand in modern society, gas and electricity are not the best choices.
In Gao'an, a building ceramic industry base in Jiangxi Province, not far from Jingdezhen, energy used to be a major problem restricting the development of local industries: old gas generators were severely polluted and had to be phased out, but natural gas not only could not guarantee stable supply, but it was also much more expensive than coal to gas. The circulating fluidized bed gasification technology and gasification residue incineration technology of Datong Coal Research Institute are changing the production and living conditions here. The cost of energy used by enterprises is one-third of the cost of burning natural gas, and they can also control ultra-low emissions of pollutants from the source, completely solving the economic and environmental constraints of the local industry, and ultimately leading to the world's largest coal to clean industrial gas project of 9 billion cubic meters.
Researchers: After the small device is completed in a cold and hot state, it is found that this is reasonable and the output can be utilized. A large platform of over 20 meters will be built, which is already considered a large-scale experiment in China.
Ren Xijie: Can we put it this way? Your experimental platform, especially the hot combustion platform, is the largest in China.
Researcher: For experiments, it is significant.
Ren Xijie: The next step is demonstration, which is the large-scale industrial promotion and application.
Researcher: Yes.
Ren Xijie: The transformation of energy in Datong City, the utilization of coal based high-tech, and the transformation of innovative achievements have always been a topic that needs to be studied, and it has also been a problem that must be solved in front of previous governments in Datong City. Datong produces 160 million tons of raw coal every year, of which 30% is coal gangue, nearly 50 million tons. What about the 50 million tons? In the past, it was mostly landfill, and it was not fully utilized. However, we brought in the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Its purpose is not only to promote clean combustion of coal, but more importantly, to transform coal based innovative achievements. We hope to turn waste into treasure, extract all coal, and make it truly contribute to the green energy of humanity in all processes, fields, and aspects.
After four years of effort, three out of 59 coal mines in Datong have achieved intelligent mining, with an annual coal production stable at around 120 million tons, of which advanced production accounts for 90.7%;
The Daqin Railway, with less than 1% of the national operating mileage, completed 23% of the total railway coal transportation and 11.3% of the total railway freight transportation, continuously breaking records for the total amount, distance, and speed of fossil energy transportation by humans;
Last year, the electricity transmitted from Datong to various parts of the country reached 39.26 billion kilowatt hours, which can meet the electricity demand of 3926 enterprises with an annual electricity consumption of 10 million kilowatt hours, and can meet the electricity demand of 13.086 million households with an annual electricity consumption of 3000 kilowatt hours. However, this data is still growing year by year;
At Datong Coal Research Institute, 5 scientific research achievements have completed the pilot test, and 5 scientific research achievements are queuing up for the pilot test.
Datong is accelerating the pace of energy transformation through the construction of five major bases, and fully promoting the green transformation of the energy industry to a new level!