A comparative study on grid resource utilization rate between China Southern Power Grid and National Grid Plc of UK

Grid resource utilization rate plays a key role in power grid operation. Although the proportion of population and the area in China Southern Power Grid (CSG) and National Grid Plc of UK (NG) are nearly, grid resources utilization of CSG is lower than that of NG. In this paper, the utilization of human resources and equipment resources of CSG and NG have been reviewed. It is discovered that there is a large gap between these two companies. The results show that the utilization in CSG is about 20% to 50% of that in NG. And it is estimated that if the equipment resources utilization of CSG increases to the level of NG in 2012, the coal consumption and thus CO 2 emissions would be reduced by 17 million tons and 21 million tons, respectively. As China is a developing country and Britain is a mature developed country, it is to some extent reasonable that grid resources utilization of CSG is lower than that of NG. The benefits of improving equipment resources utilization are illustrated in detail, which provided the reference for developing the grid resource utilization in China.