At 11:13 AM on August 3rd, the screen at the State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company's dispatch control center registered 15.326 million kilowatts, making Qingdao's power grid the first city-level network in Shandong Province to surpass the 15 million kilowatt peak load threshold. Despite record-high electricity consumption this summer, Qingdao's power supply has remained consistently stable and secure—a resilience underpinned by the rapid formation of a next-generation power grid.

If the traditional grid served merely as a "porter" for electricity, the new-generation grid functions as the "neural center" safeguarding energy security, directly addressing the most profound power transformation unfolding globally. As the worldwide energy revolution accelerates, the electrification trend coupled with surging demand from artificial intelligence computing power continues to elevate society's overall electricity needs. Concurrently, the pace of new energy replacing fossil fuels is quickening, with renewable consumption shares set to rise further. This necessitates a grid upgrade capable not only of securing supply but also of accommodating high-proportion renewable integration, robust resource allocation, flexible regulation, and resilient safety assurance.

The "15th Five-Year Plan for New Power System Construction," released in early August, outlines a national goal to preliminarily establish a safe, reliable, green, low-carbon, resilient, and intelligently flexible new-type grid within five years. Qingdao, as one of the first batch of national pilot cities for new power system capability enhancement, demonstrates steady progress through its grid's stable performance during this summer's peak demand period.

Green Energy Accounts for Over a Quarter of Supply

Power consumption data from August 3rd reveals that at the moment of peak load, local thermal power contributed 3.833 million kilowatts, or 25.0% of the day's total load; external electricity imports reached 7.34 million kilowatts, accounting for 47.9%; and wind-solar new energy output totaled 4.153 million kilowatts, representing 27.1%. This diversified, multi-source complementary supply landscape exemplifies Qingdao's accelerated new grid development. Electricity's importance has never been more pronounced than today. The International Energy Agency forecast earlier this year projected global power demand to grow at an average annual rate of 3.6% from 2026 to 2030—0.8 percentage points above the past decade's average and over 2.5 times the growth rate of overall energy demand. Experts suggest that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, driven by expanding emerging industries such as integrated circuits, AI, and computing power, China's electricity demand will maintain a relatively rapid annual growth of around 5%.

Qingdao, situated on the eastern coast, exemplifies a typical "receiving-end grid." In recent years, the growth of its integrated circuit and AI industries has continuously pushed up electricity consumption, raising supply requirements. In the first half of this year, Qingdao's total electricity consumption reached 35.233 billion kilowatt-hours, up 5.10% year-on-year—1.98 percentage points above the provincial average—corroborating this trend. Medium- and long-term load forecasts indicate that Qingdao's grid will enter a load saturation phase by 2040. Therefore, reinforcing the grid framework, smoothing external power import channels, and enhancing new energy absorption capacity remain critical tasks for Qingdao's grid upgrade. Over recent years, Qingdao has accelerated the construction of a robust grid, opening "arteries" for inter-provincial power transmission, channeling vast amounts of electricity through ultra-high-voltage and extra-high-voltage backbone networks. In the first half of this year alone, 46 key main-grid projects were completed, systematically addressing weak points in the network. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Qingdao plans to construct two 500kV substations at Zhengyang and Zhaili, expand and increase capacity at the Langya, Daze, Jiaodong, and Laoshan 500kV stations, align with the provincial ultra-high-voltage "double-ring" network layout, and implement a cross-Jiaozhou Bay flexible interconnection project to forge an even stronger modern grid.

In building the new energy system, Qingdao is actively expanding its green energy footprint from land to deep-sea territories. The CCCC Qingdao Jimo offshore photovoltaic project—featuring "power generation above sea and aquaculture below"—is growing steadily, while offshore wind farms like the 2-million-kilowatt Jimo project are poised for launch. By the end of July, Qingdao's new energy installed capacity reached 8.5389 million kilowatts, accounting for 62.62% of total installed capacity. To support this rapid expansion, State Grid Qingdao is accelerating grid connection and absorption efforts through the "Clear Breeze, Warm Sun, Striving Toward the Sea" initiative, establishing a "full-process support, full-chain coordination, full-cycle service" model for offshore PV integration. Looking ahead, during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Qingdao's new energy installed capacity is projected to grow to 21.5 million kilowatts—a 158% increase from the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan"—comprising 72% of total capacity.

Emerging Power Business Models Flourish

Stable grid operation depends on flexible dispatch of massive user-side adjustable resources. In July, Haier New Energy's virtual power plant completed its first transaction after market entry. During the midday period of high provincial PV output, the plant executed a valley-filling test by increasing electricity consumption, earning price arbitrage gains while supporting grid stability in Qingdao and across Shandong. As the province's first benchmark virtual power plant project focused on zero-carbon park scenarios, Haier's facility has aggregated 10 megawatts of commercial and industrial distributed PV, 10 megawatt-hours of user-side storage, commercial air-conditioning flexible loads, and 1.2 megawatts of charging pile resources, cumulatively participating in 72,000 kilowatt-hours of regulation to date. Virtual power plants represent a typical new business model spawned by the rapid evolution of new-type grids. Data indicates that China's new energy power generation installations will maintain an average annual growth of approximately 200 million kilowatts over the next decade. However, since renewables "depend on weather," their output is random, volatile, and intermittent; with high-proportion grid integration, system stability faces significant challenges. Virtual power plants thus become indispensable "flexible regulation pools" for the grid. Leveraging advanced ICT and software systems, they aggregate and coordinate distributed generation, storage, and controllable loads, helping to "shave peaks and fill valleys." Currently, Qingdao has established and brought six virtual power plants to market, aggregating 1.55 million kilowatts of provincial demand-side flexible regulation resources—equivalent to three medium-sized thermal units—providing flexible support for grid stability and efficient new energy absorption. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Qingdao will expand virtual power plant coverage by constructing service platforms, accelerating the development of industrial park, urban facility, and port logistics-oriented plants, and broadening flexible regulation resource aggregation. By then, the city's virtual power plant aggregation scale is expected to surpass 4 million kilowatts, with annual regulation revenues reaching tens of millions of yuan.

Within the new grid framework, smart microgrids also play an indispensable role. As small-scale autonomous systems integrating distributed generation, storage, and loads, microgrids enable local micro-circulation, promote nearby development and on-site absorption of new energy, and enhance end-grid reliability—constituting a vital component of new grid architecture. At Zunyi Road Station on Qingdao Metro Line 1, approximately 300 trains pass through daily. When trains brake upon arrival, they generate substantial energy that was previously wasted. Now, with "flywheel energy storage technology," the kinetic energy captured during deceleration is converted to electrical energy within the flywheel, which then transforms back to kinetic energy, and upon departure, reconverts to electrical energy to power the train's acceleration. In essence, the station operates as a source-grid-load-storage microgrid, forming a local energy loop of "braking recovery-flywheel buffering-traction release," reducing reliance on the urban grid and lessening impact on the main network. Qingdao Metro has already installed flywheel storage devices across five lines, saving over 4.9 million kilowatt-hours annually. Currently, Qingdao is focusing on industrial park microgrids, building microgrids, rural self-balancing microgrids, and remote island microgrids to improve self-balancing capabilities and self-consumption rates of new energy, thereby supporting safe grid operation and high-quality renewable absorption.

Digital and Intelligent Technologies Make the Grid Smarter

Transmission line inspection is essential for grid safety and stability. A decade ago, inspections relied primarily on personnel using telescopes from the ground, with special situations requiring climbing dozens of meters up steel towers—inefficient and hazardous. Today in Qingdao, drones equipped with high-definition zoom cameras and infrared thermal imaging can capture precise images and temperature readings of insulators, clamps, and pins from over ten meters away, with AI-powered recognition detecting even concealed defects. State Grid Qingdao has established 17 drone stations across the city, constructing an "air-space-ground" three-dimensional inspection system that enables intelligent, routine, and wide-area operations. This transformation reflects the continuous upgrading of Qingdao's smart operation and maintenance system, underscoring the city's strides toward a more intelligent new grid. According to the Global Power Development Index (2026) released by the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization, technological innovation and digitalization are becoming key battlegrounds in the new round of global power development competition. Digital and intelligent technologies are profoundly reshaping power system design philosophies, operational models, and optimization frameworks. AI has already been applied across numerous critical processes, gradually becoming a cornerstone of efficient grid operation. With cutting-edge technologies like AI, Qingdao's grid is becoming increasingly "intelligent," transitioning from "passive response" to "active regulation."

Maintenance scheduling is a key operational scenario. Leveraging its "4+N" distribution network dispatch intelligent cockpit, State Grid Qingdao has automated 17 dispatch processes, improving maintenance scheduling efficiency sixfold. The main-distribution coordinated panoramic self-healing system can diagnose faults within 30 seconds and restore power in three minutes, using digital technology to fortify the intelligent grid's safe operation and ensure seamless, imperceptible supply for users. Accurate load forecasting forms the foundation of power balance and grid security. Traditionally, staff manually compiled meteorological and historical load data, relying on experience for analysis—a method prone to deviations during extreme weather or holidays, while being time-consuming and inconsistent in accuracy. To address this, State Grid Qingdao has integrated large-model technology into load forecasting, developing an "AI Load Forecasting Intelligent Application." This system merges meteorological data with power operation data, intelligently mining load variation patterns to achieve efficient, intelligent, and precise predictions. Since deployment, forecasting time has been reduced by 85%, with comprehensive accuracy consistently maintained above 98%, providing solid support for summer peak power supply assurance.