Recently, the China Electricity Council released the "2023-2024 National electricity supply and demand Situation Analysis and Forecast Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), showing some changes and development trends in domestic "electricity demand", revealing the power industry's new demand for steel quantity and quality. In 2024, the electricity consumption of the whole society will reach 9.8 trillion KWH, an increase of about 6% over 2023. In 2024, the country's maximum power load will be 1.45 billion kilowatts, an increase of about 100 million kilowatts over 2023. By 2024, the installed capacity of newly put into operation will exceed 300 million kilowatts, and the cumulative installed capacity of new energy power generation will exceed the installed capacity of coal power for the first time.

The continuous growth of electricity demand has injected strong impetus into the "steel demand". According to industry analysts, with the continuous growth of domestic "electricity demand", the demand for power steel is also increasing. The nationwide construction of the power grid, the renewal and expansion of power transmission and distribution equipment, and the rapid development of renewable energy will drive the demand growth of the power steel market. In 2024, the strength of China's "electricity demand" will still increase, and the installed capacity of new power generation is expected to exceed 300 million kilowatts throughout the year, which determines the "steel demand" of the power industry in 2024 has strong toughness. It is expected that the demand for electrical steel alone will reach 13.4 million tons in 2024, an increase of 3%.

In recent years, the power industry has actively contributed to rural revitalization, vigorously implemented the rural power network consolidation and upgrading project, improved rural power infrastructure, promoted agricultural production and rural industrial electrification transformation, and promoted the rapid growth of electricity consumption in the primary industry. In 2023, the electricity consumption of the primary industry was 127.8 billion KWH, an increase of 11.5% year-on-year. In 2023, the electricity consumption of the secondary industry was 6.07 trillion KWH, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%, of which the electricity consumption of the manufacturing industry increased by 7.4%. In 2023, the electricity consumption of high-tech and equipment manufacturing industry increased by 11.3% year-on-year, 3.9 percentage points higher than the overall growth level of the manufacturing industry. Among them, the electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing industry led the growth rate of electricity consumption, the year-on-year growth rate of each quarter and the two-year average growth rate of more than 20%. From the change of "electricity demand", we can see that the endogenous development momentum of transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry is strong, the manufacturing industry accelerates the development of new quality productive forces, solidly promotes high-quality development, and the strength of "steel demand" is strengthening.

The report expects that in 2024, the installed capacity of new power generation will exceed 300 million kilowatts, and the cumulative installed capacity of new energy power generation will exceed the installed capacity of coal power for the first time. Driven by the continuous and rapid development of new energy power generation, it is expected that the installed capacity of new power generation in 2024 will once again exceed 300 million kilowatts, and the new scale is basically the same as that in 2023. It is expected that by the end of 2024, the installed power generation capacity of the country will reach 3.25 billion kilowatts, an increase of about 12% year-on-year.

Industry insiders believe that in the context of accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation of energy in China, it is expected that the new installed capacity of wind power photovoltaic in 2024 will be about 200 million kilowatts; The nuclear power project will be completed and put into operation four units, with a new installed capacity of about 5 million kilowatts. This is a new change in the "double carbon" environment of "electricity demand". At the same time, "steel demand" will also show some new trends.

With the rapid development of wind power and photovoltaic industry, the demand for wind power steel and photovoltaic steel has increased, and steel companies are vigorously developing high-end steel required by the power industry in accordance with the new demand for steel in the power industry. There are steel enterprises to increase the research and development of high-innovation products and product quality stability efforts, research and development of wind power, photovoltaic, nuclear power steel and high-efficiency motor steel, developed a lower loss of high-grade non-oriented electrical steel, has become the core material of large motor, nuclear power, wind power, frequency conversion home appliances and other industries.

According to industry analysts, the overall amount of steel used in wind power in China in the future is 10 million tons per year. From the data of recent years, the amount of steel used in wind power in 2022 is only about 5 million tons, and in 2023, it is about 9.7 million tons. By 2026, with the rapid rise of global wind power installations, especially in China, the amount of steel used in wind power in China may reach about 12 million tons.