Cement Net Comments: The Iron Law of Electricity Price Has Been Broken in 40 Years! "Meeting electricity" has become the "new ability" for cement enterprises to widen the competitiveness gap.

this year, Guizhou, Hebei (mainly Hebei Southern Power Grid), Hubei, Shaanxi, Jilin, Yunnan, Chongqing, Liaoning, Henan and other places have announced the abolition of fixed time-of-use electricity prices. The electricity price mechanism of "unified government pricing, peak and valley according to time", which has been

implemented for more than 40 years, is being replaced by real-time bidding in the spot electricity market. This means that when electricity is expensive and when it is cheap is no longer determined by an administrative document, but by supply and demand .

For cement, a big "electricity eater", this round of market-oriented electricity price reform has brought a bill that needs to be recalculated.

Daytime is no longer a "high-price area", and cement's electricity consumption habits need to change

the core logic of fixed time-of-use electricity price, which is to divide a day into three sections: peak, flat and valley-more peak electricity consumption during the day and less valley electricity consumption at night. However, this experience curve, which has been running for 40 years, has been completely rewritten by the large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic.

In areas where the proportion of new energy generation is relatively high, the sunshine at noon is abundant, the photovoltaic output is the largest, and the power supply is abundant, so the price should be low. But the old system still sets noon as the peak period, and the price of electricity is on the high side-it is not cheap when it should be cheap, and the price signal has been distorted. Han Fang, deputy director of the Planning and Development Department of

China Electricity Council, said bluntly: "The original fixed time-of-use electricity price adopts a fixed time division mode, which can no longer flexibly adapt to the characteristics of the new power system with a high proportion of new energy.". "

The result of correcting this distortion is the reduction of electricity prices at noon.". Shaanxi Electric Power Trading Center also clearly informed the market-oriented users in the prompt: "The lowest electricity price will mainly appear at noon during the photovoltaic power generation period. All market-oriented users should pay attention to the price trend changes and adjust their electricity consumption habits.". "

For cement companies, this will bring about a complete change in electricity consumption habits.".

Electricity is one of the main costs of cement production. The power consumption of clinker is usually 50-60kWh/t, and the power consumption of cement grinding is usually 20-35 kWh/t, so the comprehensive power consumption of cement production is about 55-75 kWh/t, and the power cost accounts for 15% to 25% of the total cost. Although the rotary kiln at the clinker calcining end must operate continuously and the power consumption rigidity is strong, the cement grinding, packaging, transportation and other links have a certain degree of scheduling flexibility-as long as there is enough clinker storage capacity and cement storage capacity as a buffer, it is a common practice in the industry for cement enterprises to tilt the grinding operation time to the period of low power price as far as possible.

In the past, enterprises tried to produce in a fixed period of low price, but now the price of electricity follows the market, and cement enterprises need to transform their electricity consumption habits from simple and crude to intelligent.

"Will use electricity" will become one of

the core competitiveness of cement enterprises, the most obvious industry in this round of reform is energy storage. Zhang Jianing, senior policy research manager of Zhongguancun Energy Storage Industry Technology Alliance, disclosed that after the policy landed, industrial and commercial energy storage with higher time-sharing electricity prices on the user side in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong, as well as grid-side energy storage in Hebei and other places, "the revenue of power stations in some provinces decreased by about 50%". The experience of

energy storage is a useful mirror for the cement industry-it points out a simple truth: the core logic of this round of electricity price reform is to "rely on real ability to eat", no longer guarantee the bottom, no longer guarantee the bottom. In the past, energy storage relied on fixed peak-valley price differentials to enjoy profits, but now it is necessary to actively study and judge the market and accurately capture dynamic price differentials , as is the case with cement enterprises.

With the intensive landing of the new power policy, the spot market of electricity has gradually entered the normal operation, and cement enterprises need to have professional ability to understand the "power stock market". The spot market for electricity is like a stock market for real-time trading, with prices changing minute by minute with supply and demand. Enterprises need someone to understand the clear price, quote a good medium and long-term contract, and calculate the optimal combination of spot and contract- this is no longer the scope of electricity management in traditional cement plants, but a new threshold of ability, and then substantially increase the competitiveness of enterprises.

At present, how to deal with the problem of production power distribution after the cancellation of fixed time-of-use electricity price in cement enterprises. The industry has also put forward some intelligent solutions based on AI technology. Through accurate prediction of electricity price, integration of total production data, formulation of scientific production scheduling plan, multi-use of low-cost electricity, multi-use of self-generation, reduction of electricity cost, and minimization of electricity cost.

Generally speaking, the loosening of electricity prices is another exit from the "original thinking". From capacity removal to carbon market, and then to today's electricity price marketization, the cement industry is no longer facing cyclical fluctuations, but a system reset of the underlying logic of the system. Reform brings not only dividends, but also an examination paper. If it is done well, it will save profits; if it is not done well, it will pay the price.