Overall review of peaking power in China: Status quo, barriers and solutions

As the development of economy and the improvement of living standards, both power demand and power grid capacity are increasing in China. Meanwhile, power consumption structure has undergone great changes which makes the peak–valley difference of power grid is growing, and the contradiction between peaking regulation capacity with peak-load dispatching demand is more outstanding. Recently, with construction of power stations, national regulation for macro-economy and limitations to high energy-consuming enterprises, power consumption declines in low-load hours, causes thermal power units idle which is low efficiency and not environmentally friendly and these problems could be solved if there are sufficient peaking power like pumped storage station. Therefore, based on the development status of peak-load dispatching power source in China, developing pumped storage and gas-fired generation peaking units are of great realistic significance.