Han Xiaoping: There is no way out of power reform - the fourth quarter of thermal power plants or coal-mining downtime

According to reports, coal prices have continued to rise, and coal inventories have continued to decline. In the fourth quarter of this year, coal power plants may experience large-scale coal-shutdowns. Focus: If power plants are shut down, is electricity price increase the only way to alleviate the power shortage?

According to statistics from the China Electricity Council, coal prices have continued to rise since 2003. Qinhuangdao 5500 kcal coal prices have exceeded 150%, but sales prices have risen only 32%. For this reason, CLP has called for on-grid tariffs and sales prices to come. To make up for the gap, we took Datang as an example to see that the total operating cost of thermal power installations that accounted for 86.62% of the total installed capacity of Datang Power (4.63, -0.01, -0.22%) in the first half of the year was about 27.8 billion yuan, of which the power fuel The cost accounted for about 68% of the operating cost, which was an increase of 4.8 billion yuan over the same period of last year, an increase of 34%. As for a person in charge of Datang Power, the increase in coal prices for the first half of Datang Power's cost and profit The impact is relatively large. An increase of RMB 4.8 billion in the cost of electricity and fuel costs over RMB 2 billion is a direct result of the increase in unit fuel costs.

What is more noteworthy is that the situation in Central China and South China, which have long been caught in power shortages, will be even more tense. As some power plants in central China complain, it will be very difficult to complete the goal of storing coal in winter this year. In previous years, the power plant could store only two months of winter storage coal before November. If the target of coal storage cannot be completed this year, it will be difficult to avoid downtime due The traditional electricity price is not in place. Apart from the causes of the loss caused by the increase in coal prices, the increase in the financial costs of power companies is also worthy of attention. The interest expenditure of the power industry exceeds the total amount of profits. According to data published on the official website of the China Electricity Council, 7 In the month, the total losses of the power businesses of Huaneng, Datang, Huadian, Guodian and China Power Investment Corp.’s five major power generation groups all expanded, reaching 980 million yuan, a loss of 180 million yuan over June, which means that coal prices have increased The burden on the power companies and the increase in losses are even less helpful. Han Xiaoping, chief information officer of China Energy Network, made the following commentary: Most of China's electricity consumption peaks in the summer have just passed summer, and the sound of electricity shortage for three months has once again come from all parts of the country. Because coal prices are rising, power companies cannot afford to buy coal. However, people have raised some concerns about the peak winter electricity consumption that will come soon. For coal prices, high electric field losses are serious, and coal inventory declines cannot afford coal. The coal industry believes that financial costs are an important cause of power company losses, but electric utilities On the other hand, if the profits of coal companies are too high, it is necessary to impose windfall profits tax. What do you think about this heated debate between the parties?

Han Xiaoping: In fact, both parties have a reason. In recent years, especially the rapid expansion of power generation enterprises, especially the continuous construction of thermal power plants has led to an increase in demand for coal, coal companies are not only pushing up the price of coal, this time we can What is the problem with Qinhuangdao? That is, coal prices have risen, but coal stocks are declining. At the same time, the stocks of coal purchased by power generation companies are also declining. What do you mean by the problems? Explain that coal companies are reducing coal supply by reducing coal output. The price of coal has been pushed up, so the problem of looking at actual coal and electricity has been plaguing us for many years now. We can't solve it from the beginning of 2004 until today, and we have exhausted various methods, such as coal and electricity linkage. And so on, but in the end the problem has intensified to the present day and it has caused power generation companies to fall into full-scale losses now, and coal companies now say that they are not making money, then I think there are really big problems here, one of which we know that despite you To collect this tax on coal, I want to collect its windfall tax, but the coal companies really sell coal. The profit created by a price is not that high. Sometimes when we go to Inner Mongolia, we may see that some thermal coal is only more than 300 yuan. However, when it arrives at Qinhuangdao, it becomes more than 700 yuan, and here is more freight. For example, postage is behind a large amount of freight. To this day we don't know what the fare is. This is the main reason for the continuous increase in coal prices.

In other words, coal companies can control the sale of coal, so it can be said that there are some transport costs, or the cost of sales?

Han Xiaoping: Yes.

Isn't he willing to control the sales of coal?

Han Xiaoping: Yes, coal companies are like this. Of course, the biggest guarantee is price. Recently, we saw that Shanxi Inner Mongolia is carrying out the integration of coal resources, concentrating some of the original small coal mines into some big ones, and it also turns into some Cross-head monopoly projects have increased the premium capacity of some oligarchs so that their ability to push up prices by reducing the supply of coal will continue to increase, because it will be difficult for other people to make up after reducing supply. The prices of the entire market are rising continuously. Therefore, the power companies say that it is reasonable to collect their windfall profits tax. However, the windfall profits tax collected may not be enough to make up for the losses caused by power generation companies.

Although all sides are reasonable, the peak of winter electricity consumption is actually in front of us. For example, the contradiction between rising coal prices and losses in power companies has caused the industry to re-examine the power shortage and may have become an obstacle for power companies to seek price increases. This is what the people are most reluctant to see. Can't say that if your contradictions can't be resolved, you'll have to raise prices. Will the price increase really solve the problem? Am I saying that the problem is fundamentally solved?

Han Xiaoping: Certainly cannot solve the problem. We have finished the electricity up of coal in these years, and the electricity has gone up.

People have no idea that there is not a single moment in the price rise.

Han Xiaoping: If there is no reform, there will be no end, and it will continue to rise. This is also true for power generation companies. Indeed, the rate of expansion during these years has been too rapid, and many power plants have been built. But this expansion itself stimulates high energy consumption because it was built. Electric field he wants to sell electricity, and then the biggest problem for the grid company is that as long as someone builds a power plant for me, I supply power to people. As long as there is demand, I will supply you with electricity. As a result, the high energy consumption in the country will continue to increase. Rapid expansion, then demand is also increasing, supply is also increasing, coal supply is also increasing, and this relative shortage appears in supply, while the shortage reflects the increase in coal price, and the power company is also in the middle folder. Very uncomfortable.

Well, experts are now proposing plans. With the premise of not increasing electricity prices, coal-fired electricity linkage schemes will focus on the contradictions. For coal companies and power generation companies, price linkage will be carried out to allow prices to be transmitted to the grid, and then finance The resource tax of coal companies, which subsidizes the price of electricity grids, regulates the taxation of resources by the upstream coal companies that have better profitability. If it is found that the coal companies transmit the taxes to downstream power generation companies, they will use windfall profits to Doing a replenishment and setting a profit limit for coal companies Do you agree with this proposal?

Han Xiaoping: I am afraid it is also very difficult to solve. This is a too idealistic, because it is actually impossible. After you collected a lot of coal tax, the price of coal will rise because if you do not increase the price, he said that he will maintain him. There are problems in all aspects of safety production. And just now we have said that the most important factor that causes the rise in coal prices is the transport factor rather than the coal mine itself. If you reduce the tax revenue for coal, it will not be enough to solve the problem. Therefore, I think such a solution is not ideal. In addition, when you let the power grid company digest, the problem that the grid company may cause is that there is no money to build some other power distribution. Finally, after you built the power plant, this power could not be sent to cause further financial problems. Now the power company The company has been dragged so badly that it cannot drag grid companies into it. Finally, the entire economy has fallen into a very difficult situation.

Therefore, we can only say that the contradiction between coal companies and power generation companies is not simply the contradiction between the two sides. There are still more contradictions hidden behind it.

Han Xiaoping: Indeed, this is reform. Because we have seen very clearly over the years that power reforms have stagnated, and the next phase of reform does not know which direction to go, so everyone has been deadlocked in this place and it caused today's problems. The fundamental problem is that market allocation resources have not been started. . The other one of our control over the entire price should have been locally involved in the management of prices, but now we have too much changed price management into a means of macro-control, so this place can not participate, local think that the price of electricity is your central, anyway, Then the power generation company is also your central, and then the power generation company is also your central power grid company is also your central so the electricity price can not rise, and the coal company is my own, the coal price can go up, pushing up can increase my local As a result of fiscal revenue, local and central conflicts have arisen.

Every year we have to discuss the peak of electricity consumption in winter and summer, but it seems that each year it is not particularly thorough.

Han Xiaoping: Only if we are determined to reform without reform is there a way out.