The world's largest photovoltaic energy storage power station built by Huawei in Saudi Arabia has started to supply power to the Red Sea New City Hotel, helping to build a carbon neutrality benchmark city.
Saudi Arabia Red Sea New City 13GWh microgrid project.
A few days ago, the world's largest photovoltaic energy storage power station built by Huawei in Saudi Arabia began to supply power to the Red Sea New City Hotel, boosting the construction of a carbon neutrality benchmark city. At a time when the Middle East is seeking energy transition, the Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 are being connected in the Red Sea New City, and the construction of low-carbon and green large-scale urban complexes provides new opportunities for Chinese companies such as Huawei.
The Red Sea New City aims for green transformation
In the face of climate change, the abundant photovoltaic resources in the Middle East provide a good opportunity for the transformation of Middle Eastern oil and gas producing countries. In the ongoing search for economic diversification, the energy transition has become a top priority in Middle Eastern energy policy.
This year, the UAE issued the "National Energy Strategy 2050 Update", which will increase the investment of 40 billion to 54 billion US dollars in the next seven years to ensure that the share of clean energy in the total energy mix will increase to 30% by 2030. Saudi Arabia is an important oil reserve and oil exporter in the world, and because its economy is heavily dependent on the oil industry, Saudi Arabia announced its "Vision 2030" in 2016 for the country's long-term development and economic diversification.
As a key project in the "Vision 2030", the Red Sea New City project is located on the west coast of Saudi Arabia and covers an area of 280,000 square kilometers. Construction of the project began in February 2019 and will be completed in 2030. There will be 50 hotels, 8,000 rooms and more than 1,000 residential properties on 22 islands and 6 inland locations. It is expected that the Red Sea New City will bring millions of tourists every year, $4 billion in tourism revenue, 3With 50,000 jobs, Saudi Arabia's GDP will increase by 58 per year$600 million.
The Middle East is home to a rich cultural history and a range of natural landscapes, including volcanoes, deserts and mountain valleys, as well as the world's fourth-largest barrier reef. The Red Sea New City project will rely on hotels, leisure and living places, airports and terminals and other facilities, with photovoltaic and energy storage as the main energy sources, to build a low-carbon and green large-scale urban complex.
Huawei contributes to clean electricity**
Huawei helped Saudi Arabia build the world's first GW-level 100% renewable energy power independent microgrid project, 400MW photovoltaic and 1The 3GWh microgrid energy storage system uses Huawei's intelligent optical storage solution. She Hongwu, Senior Expert of Huawei Digital Power, pointed out in his introduction**: "Honghai New City is not only the world's first new city to be powered by 100% photovoltaic energy storage, but also the world's largest photovoltaic storage microgrid power station. ”
Huawei is building a GW-level "new energy grid" in the desert, and the "microgrid model" adopted by Huawei has put forward high requirements for the cooperation of photovoltaic and energy storage equipment. It covers a number of cross-domain technologies, and few companies are involved in the corresponding standards and key technologies. Relying on a large amount of R&D investment over a long period of time, Huawei Smart PV has made special efforts to tackle key problems in grid-based energy storage and other technologies, and has achieved fruitful results. In view of the complex power grid environment of the new city, the project makes the photovoltaic storage system a reliable voltage source through grid-based energy storage technology. "To achieve stable power supply, Huawei has pioneered the development of a virtual synchronous machine technology, which allows each energy storage converter to simulate the transportation mode of a traditional synchronous generator, use a virtual governor to control the grid frequency, and a virtual countertimer to control the grid voltage. More than 1,000 energy storage converters synchronously support the frequency and voltage of the microgrid to ensure the stable operation of the power grid. ”
Saudi Arabia Red Sea New City 13GWh microgrid project.
While establishing a stable power grid, Honghai New City can also achieve 100% off-grid continuous fault traversal under the new energy microgrid and support GW-level black start of the entire network, so as to achieve minute-level power recovery and effectively avoid power outage losses. In addition, in view of the frequent sudden investment demand of transformers in the field and the inrush current generated by the start and stop of shock loads such as motors, resulting in the collapse of the power grid, the advanced grid-based energy storage algorithm supports the switching of 100% energy storage rated capacity transformers without over-allocating PCS, so as to ensure the stable power supply of the whole network.
Optical storage microgrid helps to electrify transportation
Yang Yougui, Senior Vice President of Huawei and President of Digital Power Marketing and Service System, said that towards the goal of carbon neutrality, the energy structure is rapidly evolving towards low-carbon power generation, with clean energy replacing traditional energy and renewable energy dominating the future. According to the IRENA analysis, more than 90% of the solutions driving a successful energy transition by 2050 involve renewable energy through a combination of direct**, electrification, energy efficiency, green hydrogen and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).
Yang Yougui pointed out that photovoltaic is the main force in the new power installation, and with the substantial growth of its installed capacity, energy storage will also play an irreplaceable role. At the same time, the energy-using side will usher in an era of electricity-centered energy consumption, and electric energy will become the main body of energy consumption. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) expects electricity to account for 51% of energy consumption by 2050. Electric vehicles will play an important role in this process, with the number of electric vehicles expected to grow from 30 million at the end of last year to 21800 million units.
With the help of Huawei's intelligent photovoltaic storage solution, photovoltaic and microgrid energy storage systems have effectively guaranteed the power of Honghai New Town**, and five solar farms with a total of 760,000 photovoltaic panels have been built to provide power for the first phase of the new city project. On top of this, the new city is also equipped with the largest off-grid electric vehicle charging network in Saudi Arabia. "We will propel the Red Sea New City into a next-generation intelligent transportation future powered entirely by sunlight. John Pagano, Group CEO of Red Sea Global Group (RSG), said: "The electric fleet and charging network not only enhance our environmental reputation, but also serve as another global benchmark for carbon-neutral operations, as well as meeting our guests' expectations for high-end fashion and comfort. ”
Text |Intern reporter of this newspaper Yang Muyan.