On September 26, Premier Li Keqiang presided over an executive meeting of the State Council, and decided to improve the mechanism of coal-fired power generation on-grid tariff formation, promote market-oriented electricity transactions, and reduce corporate electricity costs.

In order to implement the deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to deepen the reform of the electric power system, and accelerate the establishment of a market-oriented electricity price formation mechanism through reforms, the meeting decided: seize the current market-oriented coal-fired power generation electricity, which accounts for about 50% of the electricity, and the electricity price is clearly lower than the benchmark Timing of electricity prices, for coal-fired power generation that has not yet achieved market-oriented transactions, from January 1 next year, the coal-fired electricity price linkage mechanism will be cancelled, and the current benchmark on-grid tariff mechanism will be changed to a "base price + fluctuating" marketization mechanism. The benchmark price is determined according to the current coal-fired power generation benchmark grid-connected electricity price, and the floating range is no more than 10%, and in principle no more than 15%. The specific electricity price is determined by power generation companies, electricity sales companies, and power users through negotiation or bidding, but There will be no increase next year, and it is especially important to ensure that the average industrial and commercial average electricity price will only drop but not rise. At the same time, electricity consumption in areas such as residents and agriculture will continue to implement the current catalog electricity prices to ensure stability.

Mao Jun, Manager of Commodity Strategy Department of Jinying Capital, believes that, on the one hand, the original coal-electricity linkage mechanism through the way that electricity prices are linked to coal prices is indeed conducive to the smooth transmission of power generation costs to the downstream, avoiding the emergence of independent coal companies or power companies. In the “big” situation, the mission of promoting the balance of interests between coal and electricity has been completed within a period of time. But on the other hand, coal-electricity linkage under the traditional model generally takes half a year or a year as the price linkage cycle. Not only does it have the characteristic of lagging behind the price changes too slowly, but it also has the defects of monotonous adjustment methods and poor sensitivity. It is also unable to solve the contradiction between the domestic electricity price and the pricing mechanism of the effective marketization of the electricity demand for economic development. Under a series of internal institutional barriers in the coal and power industries, raising electricity prices only on the premise of not opening the market will seriously hinder the self-driving force of management and technological innovation in the power industry, and will not be conducive to the progress and development of power companies in the long run .

In fact, since my country’s supply-side structural reforms have been restricted by the overall requirements for lowering costs and lowering electricity prices, the coal-electricity price linkage mechanism has basically come to a standstill. The current market-based transaction price of coal-fired power generation is significantly lower than the benchmark on-grid power price, which reflects the current situation of the power market with weak growth in electricity consumption in the whole society and an increase in the proportion of non-coal-fired power generation. "Under such a power supply and demand situation, accelerating the reform of the electricity market will most likely increase the room for electricity price reductions. Coal-fired power generation companies can only seek more profit margins from coal prices. This means that power plants have an impact on thermal coal prices. The willingness to hold down prices will increase." said Gong Ping, a researcher at SDIC Essence Futures Investment Consulting Department.

The current benchmark on-grid electricity price mechanism was changed to a "base price + fluctuating" market mechanism, which promoted the process of electricity price marketization. At the same time, the floating part is determined through negotiation or bidding by power generation companies, power sales companies, power users, etc., and the power generation, power sales, and power consumption nodes are drawn into the same market pricing mechanism, which is conducive to the acceleration of the marketization of electricity prices. And fully realized.

In the opinion of industry professionals, when the marketization of electricity prices reaches a certain effective height, the process of management efficiency enhancement and technological reform of the power production sector will undoubtedly accelerate. From the production side, thermal power companies will inevitably advance the two aspects of controlling coal price costs (currently accounting for about 65% of electricity price costs on average) and increasing coal consumption per kWh to a more important level, which will invisibly reduce the demand for thermal coal. , Using the mechanism of market competition to promote coal prices in the price center that is more balanced for the interests of both coal and electricity, and at the same time continue to advance the technological improvement of thermal power companies. In addition, the bidding model will also open up space for future new energy consumption, and use marginal cost competition to determine the grid priority of power generation projects. The benign development model will realize the "improvement of energy efficiency and reduction of system energy costs" that the national power reform has always advocated. "The fundamental purpose.

"In the future, if we can take advantage of this shareholder interest in the electricity price market formation mechanism, and then promote the listing of market-oriented tools such as electricity futures, the coal market and the electricity market will be simultaneously built into a multi-level market system with market mechanism pricing and complete futures tools. The construction of coal power market will continue to make further progress." Mao Jun said.