CHD's clean and intelligent heat supply system

China Huadian Corporation (CHD), a Chinese central SOE active in heat production and supply, has been supplying heat to Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Anhui, Shaanxi and many more of China's cities and provinces since Nov 15.

The company's heat supply system now covers an area of 564 million sq m, 4 percent larger than last year. The system has an installed capacity of 72.43 million kW, a year-on-year increase of 14 percentage point.

Clean and intelligent heat supply systems are gradually becoming more common as a result of CHD's efforts to generate heat through gas and electricity instead of coal.

Coal-fired boilers with an evaporative capacity of under 10 tons are a major cause of smog in China, as they usually burn low-quality coal with high sulphur content to reduce cost and use fuel treatments that don't meet related standards.

Therefore, China's government has called on replacing the coal fired boilers with clean heat generating systems.

The CHD has responded to the initiative. It stopped working low evaporative capacity boilers and sprawled its clean-energy heating network across China, including Heilongjiang, Shandong and Hunan provinces.

What is now Northwest China's largest heating network, constructed by CHD's Yinchuan branch, started to operate on Nov 11.

The heating network, across the Yellow River, uses large temperature difference heat pump technology. The heat source at CHD's Wuling power plant is 54.6 C and after being transmitted over 46 km, the heat temperature is 53.7 C, a loss of less than 1 C.

Another advantage to the heating network is intelligence. It uses the Internet to collect and monitor all parameters and ensure heat stability and convenience.

Supplying heat to households is a detailed job, requiring patience to resolve problems of private residences. CHD has hotlines to accept various problems of its clients and fix them rapidly and carefully. The company also puts on public service days to communicate with its clients face to face. It also sends technical workers to visit clients, hear their recommendations, and hand out tips and copies of heating regulations.

Apart from offering heat to households, CHD supplies steam to industrial parks to meet their production needs and improve energy efficiency.

"In recent years, business-owned small steam generation equipment can't meet the businesses' own needs because of the increasing prices of coal, transportation and labor as well as the more strict environmental regulation," said a manager of a pharmacy company in Hubei province. "Companies desire to have stable steam supply."

CHD takes every opportunity to develop its industrial steam supply. It serves many influential companies, supplying heat on an average of one million GJ per year and it gains profits of above three million yuan ($0.43 million) per year.

To satisfy its clients in industrial parks with high-quality products, CHD has made a great effort to improve its steam pipeline network.

Currently, CHD is providing safe and steady steam to nine companies in Xisaishan Industrial Park in Hubei province, and it will offer steam to 12 more companies in Hunan province after it completes relevant pipeline network improvements.