Energy conservation is an essential part of ecological progress, a crucial means to tackle China's constraints of resources and the environment, and a vital approach to achieve the nation's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals while promoting high-quality development.
As a central State-owned enterprise specialized in green development, the China Green Development Investment Group (CGDG) firmly upholds the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, and persistently integrates green principles throughout the entire process of reform and development. It puts increasing efforts into promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction, and explores different pathways to achieve green development focused on both energy supply and consumption.
Energy Supply: Wind and Solar Power with Technologies
On July 1, the world's largest liquid air energy storage demonstration project, which was independently developed and invested by the CGDG, started construction in Golmud City, Northwest China's Qinghai Province.
The demonstration project has an installed capacity of 60,000 kilowatts/600,000 KWh and is accompanied by a 250,000-kilowatt photovoltaic project. It adopts ultra-low temperature cascade technology for cold storage with independent intellectual property rights.
With continuous R&D and innovation, the project has obtained more than 100 invention patents, and has upscaled liquid air energy storage systems from 100-kilowatt to 10,000-kilowatt level.
Once completed and put into operation, the project will become the demonstration project with the world's largest generated power and the world's largest energy storage in the field of liquid air energy storage, filling the gap in large-scale long-duration energy storage technology.
It is also of great significance to promote energy green transformation, ensure energy security, facilitate high-quality energy development, and to address climate change.
In the vast expanse of the Yellow Sea, rows of wind turbines stand tall, harnessing clean energy to power numerous households.
At the CGDG's Jiangsu Rudong Offshore Wind Farm, a digital intelligent offshore wind power safety collaborative system has been developed. It utilizes big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence technologies based on the "device, grid, cloud, and application" framework.
The wind farm has become the first-ever full-life-cycle digital smart offshore wind farm in China and it realizes safety control in the entire life cycle, ranging from preliminary planning and design, engineering construction to post-operation and maintenance.
In the first half of this year, the Jiangsu Rudong Offshore Wind Farm generated a total of 268 million kWh, meeting the annual electricity consumption of about 100,000 households and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 267,000 tons.
CGDG's Jiangsu Rudong Offshore Wind Power Project [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]
Golmud City, Northwest China's Qinghai Province, boasts a vast land and sparse population, flat terrain, well-prepared land resources, and stable geological structures. The geographical advantages lay an excellent foundation for the construction of new energy projects.
In Golmud, the CGDG's Qinghai Haixi Multiple Energy Resources Complementary Integration Optimization National Demonstration Project has been conducting innovative explorations in green energy.
"The demonstration project is not for a simple combination of several energy forms but aims to deeply integrate multiple energy sources through the development of new technologies and modes to achieve the effect of 1+1>2," explained a project engineer from the CGDG's new energy company in Qinghai.
The project uses photovoltaic, wind, and solar thermal energy as its main power sources, and uses solar thermal energy storage systems and battery energy storage stations as regulating power sources. By doing so, it adopts a combination of multiple sources of electricity that can effectively improve the instability and lack of adjustability of wind and photovoltaic energy, as well as completely solve the problem of imbalanced electricity output during peak and off-peak periods.
Energy Consumption: Industrial Synergy and Integrated Development
The green energy converted from solar power flows continuously into shopping malls.
"Since starting to use 'green electricity,' we have gained confidence in energy consumption," said the responsible person for the operation of a commercial complex in Jinan, Shandong Province.
The shopping mall benefits from the rooftop photovoltaic power generation project that was constructed and is operated by the CGDG. The project is expected to generate up to 31.05 million kWh during its service life, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 30,957 tons, equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by 1.65 million trees in one year. It is also estimated to save nearly one million yuan in electricity costs for the commercial complex every year.
Another part of the green power that enables this commercial complex achieve carbon neutrality is the CGDG's Shandong Dezhou Wind Farm.
The CGDG leverages its industrial synergy advantages and realize cross-platform collaboration between the green energy industry and the green service industry.
As Dezhou Wind Farm's green electricity is integrated into the Shandong power grid, the commercial complex purchases the wind farm's power through the green electricity trading platform according to the electricity required for operation.
The perfect combination of rooftop photovoltaic power and wind power from Dezhou Wind Farm enables the commercial complex to use entirely green electricity.
The commercial complex photovoltaic power generation project operated by the CGDG [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]
Aiming for the dual carbon goals and centering on the main responsibility of green development, the CGDG strives for the comprehensive, green low-carbon transformation to green energy in construction space and life services, and is accelerating the construction of a new pattern of green development.
At the CGDG's Qiandao Lake Resort, Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, green and low-carbon elements can be seen everywhere, featuring rainwater recovery pools to recycle water, solar photovoltaic power generation equipment to reduce energy consumption, and centralized parking of motor vehicles and the use of electric cars to reduce carbon emissions in green transportation.
In addition, through innovative applications of green building technologies and materials, the company has developed "green, intelligent, and healthy" construction standards for green building products. It endeavors to construct demonstration projects that are long-lasting, high-quality, and low-energy consuming.
To date, the CGDG has obtained 196 green building certifications and launched two batches of "dual carbon" demonstration projects.
(Executive editor: Xie Yunxiao)
