| Energy is the material basis of social development, even the support and motivation of the growth of national economy. It is not only closely related to the human development, but also playing an irreplaceable role in the social and economic development. Nowadays, fossil fuels are still dominant in the structure of China’s energy consumption, and contradiction between limited energy and the growth in demand is increasingly intensified. Energy has become a bottleneck restricting the social and economic development. In this situation, hydropower as a renewable energy begins to mount the historical stage and occupies an important position.Hydropower resources in China ranks first in the world, but the degree of development and utilization is low. Hydropower as a clean and renewable energy, not only can effectively guarantee the energy supply in China, optimize China’s energy supply structure, but also has great value in energy saving and emission reduction, and will have a very broad space for developing and utilizing. Based on reading a lot of literature, collecting and processing large numbers of data, combined with spatial analysis and econometric analysis, the paper describes and analyzes the important position, the reserves and the spatial distribution of hydropower resources in China, and has a detailed discussion on geographical distribution, the development and utilization of China’s hydropower, production and consumption pattern and the change of spatial and temporal, the necessity of the power transmission from west to east, and then put forward suggestions and countermeasures based on the existing problems of the current hydropower development.Through the analysis, the conclusions and understanding are as follows:(1) The total amount of water resources in China ranks first in the world, but the per capita quantity is in deficiency. From the perspective of recoverable reserves, hydropower resources accounts for a larger proportion of conventional energy. This shows the potential development of water resources in China is huge, with conditions of large-scale development and support of energy structure upgrading, and its’status in energy structure will be gradually prominent in the future.(2) The spatial distribution of China’s hydropower resources is uneven, with obvious spatial agglomeration phenomena. Hydropower resources in the southwest are the most abundant, while the eastern region comparatively poor, presenting a state of "west rich, east poor" in the whole country. The distribution of water resources among different watershed is also of great difference, and the Yangtze River Basin has the most abundant water resources, far higher than other basins.(3) In hydropower development, installed capacity of hydropower station of Yangtze River Basin is largest, accounting for more than half of the national total quantity, and here distributes the most hydropower station, with2441.From the development degree, the development and utilization level of water resources in China is relatively low, only21.3%. The development degree of the southeast coastal river, Pearl River and Huaihe River basin is high, and it is low in the Yangtze River Basin with rich hydropower resources, Yarlung Zangbo River and other rivers in Tibet, international river basin in southwest, which will be the main battlefield of hydropower development in China in the future.(4) In the period from1995to2010, hydraulic power generation in China presents an approximately linear growth, and the agglomeration degree of hydropower development is gradually intensive, while regional differences of hydropower distribution is large. Hydropower in the southwest and central of China is the most abundant, especially in Hubei, Sichuan and Yunnan province, while North China area at least, less than1%of national total quantity. The power structure in different regions also have significant differences, in addition to Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan province dominated by hydroelectric power, most other provinces are dominated by thermal power.(5) In the six regional power grid, Central China Power Grid and China Southern Power Grid are the high value areas of hydropower consumption, mainly reflecting in Henan, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong provinces. Power demand in North China is large where economy is relatively developed, but the hydropower consumption here is not high now, being the key regions of energy structure conversion in the future.(6) From the geographical position, China’s hydropower transportation pattern was explicitly divided into North, Central and South three transmission channels from west to east, north to south. Among them, the north channel is to transport hydropower of Gansu, Qinghai Province to Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong areas in North China; central channel is to transport hydropower of Sichuan, Hubei Province to Chongqing, Henan and Anhui, Jiangsu province in east China; south channel is to transport hydropower of Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan province to Guangdong, Hainan province etc.(7) The production areas of China’s hydropower are mainly distributed in the southwest region, while economically developed areas in the eastern coastal region, there is regional dislocation between them. Major consumption areas of hydropower and economically developed areas have certain coincidence, but the former gathers more to the southwest and central region. With time going, the dislocation of barycenter between hydropower production and economy increased in both north-south and east-west direction, the same as the hydropower consumption and economy.(8) In order to ensure security of energy supply, strengthen environmental protection, it is necessary to recognize energy demand in the future and the existing problems of the hydropower development. On the basis, draw up hydropower development policy from the multi-aspects of management system of hydropower development, immigration and the ecological environment to reinforce strategic reserves of energy and ensure national energy security. |
PDF Full Text Request