Shanghai Electric: Energy Equipment Giant Holds Low Carbon New Bureau Carbon Expo | Equipment | Energy
At the recent Carbon Expo and Shanghai International Trade Fair, Shanghai Electric's booth has become quite different from the past. In my impression, thermal power and nuclear power equipment manufacturing are representative businesses of Shanghai Electric, but now the most eye-catching and consulted products on Shanghai Electric's booth are the newly released "wind, solar, storage, and hydrogen" products, all of which come from the new energy field without exception.
On June 11th, Shanghai Electric announced its first "Shanghai Electric Group's Dual Carbon" Action Plan, announcing that the company will achieve its own carbon neutrality by 2035 and full value chain carbon neutrality by 2055, significantly ahead of the national "dual carbon" target.
What drives traditional energy manufacturing giants to quickly enter the low-carbon track? This seems to be not just due to national strategy and social responsibility. After talking with several leaders in the new energy field of Shanghai Electric, the reporter found that low-carbon transformation has already been related to the development and survival of enterprises. When the low-carbon wave approaches, how should Shanghai Electric, a huge state-owned equipment giant, turn around?
Dual carbon opportunities
In fact, as a manufacturing enterprise deeply involved in the energy field, Shanghai Electric has long realized the urgency of energy transformation.
As early as 2011, Shanghai Electric began to deepen its research and development in the field of energy storage technology, actively exploring ways to cope with energy transformation. Over the past decade, it has laid out multiple energy storage technology routes, including lithium battery, liquid flow, photothermal molten salt, compressed air, flywheel, superconductivity, etc. Nowadays, the internally incubated liquid flow energy storage innovation company has begun the rapid development process of A-round social financing; In the 2018 annual report, the term "low-carbon" first appeared in Shanghai Electric's annual report, stating that "the trend of low-carbon power structure is becoming increasingly evident"; In September 2019, Shanghai Electric built a smart energy demonstration project in the Minhang Old Industrial Park, forming a set of experience in clean and smart energy network management that combines wind, light, and storage. These actions were taken before the country released its "dual carbon" strategy.
However, overall, at that time, Shanghai Electric's transformation and upgrading focused more on improving energy utilization efficiency, and the development of new energy equipment was still a supplement to traditional energy equipment. Since 2020, these previously planned transformation "seedlings" have suddenly become the focus of the entire venue.
At the Carbon Expo, Shanghai Electric's new energy products attracted the attention of many visitors.
In September 2020, China proposed the "dual carbon" strategy of striving to achieve "carbon peak" by 2030 and "carbon neutrality" by 2060. An internal employee of Shanghai Electric engaged in new energy research and development told reporters that in 2019, Shanghai Electric had determined the technological roadmap for developing new energy such as hydrogen, but their work status was relatively low-key at that time. It was not until 2020, when the national "dual carbon" strategy was proposed, that the projects he was responsible for suddenly began to receive a lot of attention, and the support within the group also increased accordingly. Afterwards, his research and development team quickly gained the opportunity to cooperate with top domestic universities, and the process of independent research and development was accelerated.
From being unknown to the forefront of various fields, most of the earliest personnel at Shanghai Electric engaged in low-carbon transformation technology research and development have had such experiences. On the surface, this is because the "dual carbon" strategy imposes strict carbon reduction targets on enterprises, but deeper exploration will reveal that valuing new energy and new tracks is an inevitable move to adapt to market changes.
Hu Jianbo, the person in charge of the smart energy demonstration project in Minhang Industrial Park, told
The energy storage project constructed by Shanghai Electric in Minhang Industrial Zone has a scale of 4 megawatts/12.6 megawatt hours, making it the largest energy storage operation project in Shanghai.
Dual network linkage
With a plan in place, how should the "dual carbon" target be implemented specifically? On June 11th, Liu Ping, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and President of Shanghai Electric, announced Shanghai Electric's first "Action Plan" on "dual carbon" at the Carbon Expo. What kind of products and scenarios will Shanghai Electric develop in the future, and what kind of scenarios will it be applied in, can be seen from this Action Plan by the outside world.
This Action Plan shows that Shanghai Electric hopes to achieve "carbon peak" by 2030, achieve "carbon neutrality" in its own operations by 2035, and achieve "carbon neutrality" in the entire value chain by 2055. There are two details worth noting. Firstly, Shanghai Electric aims to achieve carbon neutrality in its own operations much earlier than the national strategic requirement of 2060. Secondly, it aims to achieve carbon neutrality in the supply chain by 2055. This means that Shanghai Electric hopes to produce full process "zero carbon" products and achieve industrial transformation and upgrading at that time.
The reason why Shanghai Electric has set its goals so high is also due to changes in its downstream application scenarios.
Energy and industrial equipment manufacturing have always been the two main sources of revenue for Shanghai Electric, and these two sectors correspond precisely to the two most urgent areas of transformation under the national dual carbon strategy transformation. According to research data from Zhongzi, energy and industry have the highest proportion of carbon emissions distribution in different fields in China, accounting for 51% and 28% respectively. Among them, the energy sector includes scenarios such as power generation and heating, and is transitioning towards a new type of power system. The industrial sector includes scenarios such as metallurgy, chemical industry, and building materials, and is transitioning towards zero carbonization production.
The changing demands of application scenarios are forcing equipment manufacturing enterprises to quickly adjust their product direction. Faced with energy as the main battlefield for emission reduction, Shanghai Electric is actively developing four new tracks: wind, solar, storage, and hydrogen. At the same time, it is upgrading and linking with efficient and clean coal-fired power to build new power system solutions; Faced with the zero carbon production requirements of industrial scenarios, Shanghai Electric is building zero carbon industrial park solutions through distributed new energy supply, low-carbon operation of smart buildings, green intelligent manufacturing production lines, and other methods, and promoting them to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain in the future.
Meanwhile, the two major application scenarios of energy and industry are closely related. Shanghai Electric believes that developing hydrogen energy is the key to synergistic carbon reduction in two major application scenarios. Hydrogen energy is not only an extension of renewable energy and an important component of building new power systems, but also one of the important industrial raw materials. The production of hydrogen through green electricity has been listed as an important step in Shanghai Electric's low-carbon action.
core technology
In the above-mentioned low-carbon layout areas, some are traditional strengths of Shanghai Electric, such as improving coal-fired power efficiency, nuclear power, wind power, etc., while others are new fields, such as photovoltaics, energy storage, hydrogen energy, etc. On these new tracks, Shanghai Electric not only needs to complete the basic research and development process from scratch, but also faces the rapidly changing and fiercely competitive market environment.
Taking the hydrogen production industry as an example, at the end of 2022, Shanghai Electric's first company focused on electrolytic water hydrogen production, Hydrogen Engine Era Technology Co., Ltd., was established, and at the same time, an alkaline electrolytic water hydrogen production equipment with a single hydrogen production capacity of 1500 standard cubic meters per hour was released. Only half a year later, Hydrogen Age brought an upgraded version of this product at the first Carbon Expo, with 2000 standard cubic meters per hour of alkaline electrolysis water hydrogen production equipment. It is understood that this equipment is currently the largest alkaline electrolysis water hydrogen production unit in China. Under the premise of higher current density, it can achieve lower DC energy consumption. The production cost of hydrogen per standard cubic meter has decreased by 6% year-on-year, and the floor area has decreased by 33% year-on-year under the same scale of hydrogen production, better meeting the scene needs of large-scale hydrogen production and industrial hydrogen.
In the current crowded hydrogen energy race, Shanghai Electric can quickly come up with "capable" products, partly because of its forward-looking layout for new industries, and partly because of the high emphasis on technology and talent after the acceleration of the "dual carbon" strategy. Xiong Chenglong, Minister of the Comprehensive Management Department of the Hydrogen Age, told reporters that it is not difficult to get started in the field of hydrogen energy, but the difficulty lies in product iteration. "If we don't want to get into vicious competition, we still need our core technology to be 'hard enough'," Xiong Chenglong said.
The integrated demonstration project of green hydrogen production storage utilization in Minhang Industrial Zone during the hydrogen era.
After deciding to vigorously develop the hydrogen energy industry, Hydrogen Age has drawn elite personnel from within Shanghai Electric, and in the past two years, has also introduced many professional talents from outside, quickly forming a team with complete professional configurations and strong research and development capabilities. In less than half a year, the R&D team made breakthrough progress in alkaline water hydrogen production, ensuring the smooth incubation of the hydrogen reactor era.
According to the relevant person in charge, in addition to hydrogen energy, Shanghai Electric's development in energy storage is also very rapid, and the industry scale has been doubling in the past two years. In terms of photovoltaics, Shanghai Electric is also rapidly starting. Recently, it has launched a 4.8 gigawatt heterojunction photovoltaic cell construction project in Nantong, Jiangsu, to open up the mainstream photovoltaic technology route of heterojunctions.
