On August 10, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Coal Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan").
The Plan coordinates energy security and green transformation, focuses on the main line of building a modern coal industry system, puts forward nine key tasks, and emphasizes the need to continuously promote the construction of coal supply guarantee bases in Shanxi, western Inner Mongolia, eastern Inner Mongolia, northern Shaanxi and Xinjiang. It plans and builds a number of large-scale modern coal mines with high standards, improves the level of large-scale and intensive development. By 2030, the output of the five major coal supply guarantee bases will account for more than 80% of the national total.
Relevant responsible officials from the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration said in interpreting the Plan that the "15th Five-Year Plan" period is an important transformation period for the transformation and development of the coal industry. Coal consumption will peak, the development environment of the coal industry will face profound and complex changes, and the industrial development will be accompanied by both opportunities and risks.
New production capacity must be incorporated into the "unified ledger" of production capacity before being organized and implemented.
Reporters from Daily Economic News have noticed that in terms of optimizing the spatial layout of coal development, the Plan proposes to continuously advance the exploration of coal resources, strengthen the comprehensive evaluation of resources, increase the scale of resource reserves, and ensure the continuous development of coal. It is required to strengthen the overall regulation of total production capacity, take into account factors such as the potential of resource development and the balance of regional supply and demand, reasonably arrange the scale of subsequent production capacity, focus on the layout within the five major supply guarantee bases, and prioritize supporting the integrated industrial development of upstream and downstream and cross-regional coal supply guarantee projects.
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, new production capacity must be incorporated into the unified production capacity ledger before being implemented. For new production capacity of all types of coal mines, the production capacity replacement policy must be strictly implemented.
In recent years, non-fossil energy has gradually played a leading role in China's energy supply. Why do we still need to continue developing the coal industry?
Lin Boqiang, Dean of the China Institute of Energy Policy at Xiamen University, said in a WeChat interview with reporters from Daily Economic News that against the backdrop of the rapid development and continuous expansion of the scale of new energy in China, problems such as difficulties in the consumption of new energy and unbalanced supply and demand have become increasingly prominent. To address these issues, the key lies in building an energy security system that features complementary supply between new energy and traditional energy and coordinated guarantee of strategic reserves.
He believes that traditional energy sources such as coal still have irreplaceable functions in ensuring energy supply. Given the significant instability of new energy and insufficient regional consumption capacity, fossil energy sources like coal, as the "cornerstone," play an especially important role in guaranteeing basic energy supply. Precisely for this reason, it is necessary to improve the stable supply system based on coal, accelerate the construction of oil and gas production, supply, storage and transportation infrastructure, expand the scale of the national energy strategic reserve and enhance emergency response capabilities, strengthen the safety guarantee force at critical moments, and hold the bottom line of energy security.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics also supports this view: In the first half of this year, China's above-scale industrial sector produced 2.37 billion tons of raw coal, with an average daily output of 13.07 million tons, marking the second-highest level for the same period in history.
Vigorously carry out the intelligent transformation of mines with severe disasters
With AI (Artificial Intelligence) increasingly becoming a key variable in the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, AI is also accelerating its application in the coal industry.
In terms of promoting the iterative upgrading of coal mine intelligence, the Plan proposes to thoroughly implement the "Artificial Intelligence Plus" initiative, strengthen the collection of artificial intelligence data in the coal sector, and promote the systematic application of artificial intelligence in key scenarios such as exploration and design, construction and production, operation and maintenance, and safety management.
Accelerate the R&D and promotion of dedicated large models in the coal field, focus on breaking through the key technical bottlenecks such as intelligent perception, autonomous decision-making and intelligent control, cultivate and build a number of pilot coal mines for integrated artificial intelligence applications, and promote the improvement of coal mine safety production levels. Vigorously carry out the intelligent transformation of mines with severe disasters and mines with major or above accidents, and promote the replacement of dangerous and arduous posts with robotic operations.
Lin Boqiang stated that as the "cornerstone" and "stabilizer" guaranteeing national energy security, the coal industry is undergoing a profound transformation in its development model. On the one hand, the in-depth advancement of the energy revolution requires coal, a traditional fossil energy source, to shift toward clean, efficient and low-carbon utilization; on the other hand, the large-scale grid connection of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power has put forward unprecedented high demands on the stable regulation capacity of power systems. Under such dual pressures, relying on artificial intelligence technology to reshape the coal industry chain has become an inevitable choice for cultivating new quality productive forces in the industry and safeguarding the overall national energy security.
Lin Boqiang believes that in the coal mining link, the core role of artificial intelligence focuses on safety and efficiency. Through geological exploration large models, intelligent tunneling control systems and unmanned transportation, the number of underground operators can be significantly reduced, preventing major and extremely serious safety accidents from the source; at the same time, with the intelligent control of mining equipment and the overall optimization of the production system, mining efficiency and resource recovery rate can be greatly improved.
In the coal chemical industry segment, artificial intelligence is the key to cost reduction, efficiency improvement and product upgrading. Relying on AI models to conduct real-time optimization and intelligent control of complex technological processes such as coal washing, gasification and synthesis can not only accurately regulate reaction conditions, improve the quality stability of key products, but also reduce the energy and material consumption per unit product, and enhance the route economy and environmental protection.
In the downstream thermal power link, artificial intelligence is a powerful tool to enhance flexible regulation and sustainable development capabilities. By optimizing boiler combustion and steam turbine operation through AI algorithms, accurately predicting grid load fluctuations and changes in new energy output, coal-fired units can operate efficiently and cleanly in a wide load range, quickly respond to peak regulation needs, and solidify their indispensable supporting role in power systems with a high proportion of new energy grid connection.
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