Policy proposals on implementing integrated resource planning strategy to promote sustainable development of the electric power industry in Beijing

Beijing´s economy is growing rapidly with a concomitant increase in electricity demand. Beijing´s Power grid is a giant receiving-end grid. Two-thirds electric power is received from other provinces. The city power grid planning is facing to a worsening external and internal environment. The construction of power grid is becoming more and more difficult and the supply side room for growth is limited. The contradiction between growth in power demand and bottleneck of power supply is the main factor of restricting sustainable development of electric power industry. We select Haidian district as an integrated resource planning (IRP) test bed. The effect of the IRP model is demonstrated with examples taken from new transformer substations in Beijing Institute of Technology and Daoxianghu. The results show that the implementation of integrated resource planning can not only meet normal power demand and reliability requirements, but also cut down the total cost compared with that by traditional planning while greatly reducing pollutant emission. IRP will be effective means to solve the contradiction between power demand and supply. We discuss how to transform the method of the traditional planning to the method of IRP in Beijing. We emphasize the necessity of creating an organizational mechanism for implementing and sustaining an IRP process and the necessity of creating financial incentive mechanisms for firms to build more Efficiency Power Plants.