On August 6, a discussion forum among VIPs was held at the Qilu Conference Room of the Shandong Hotel during the International Summit on Innovation and Development of Youth Entrepreneurs 2018. Local Party and government leaders spoke with 40 well-reputed business leaders, professionals, scholars, and young entrepreneurs. Their focus included such aspects as new and old kinetic energy conversion, high-quality development, AI/big data development, and personnel system innovation. Related suggestions were proposed with the aim of promoting Shandong’s innovative development.ZHU Yufeng, Vice Chairman of GCL Group: Bringing Marine Farming and Power Generation Together

According to ZHU Yufeng, vice chairman of GCL Group, “Shandong’s power grid conditions and the available land, sunlight, and wind in the eastern-central region are of exceptional quality. With the quickly declining costs of PV, wind, and natural gas power generation and accelerated development of related technology, it will be very possible to build and operate power plants with integrated wind- and solar-energy storage systems in Shandong.” ZHU then gave suggestions on new energy industry development in Shandong.   

ZHU proposed that while propelling energy supply-side reforms in Shandong to help with old and new kinetic energy conversion in the area, the province could also make use of GCL’s offshore natural gas so as to accelerate the planning and building of LNG receiving stations, thus increasing the percentage of natural gas among the other primary energy resources used in Shandong:  

 “Our hope is that Shandong will introduce a natural gas power generation policy as soon as possible, especially for the turbine-powered thermoelectric projects within the Shandong Old and New Kinetic Energy Conversion Zone, and that they will soon begin pilot demonstrations as so that clean, natural gas power projects may begin operations and produce the desired results in the near future.”

ZHU also stated his expectations for Shandong’s support of GCL’s investment into and development of its large-scale, eco-friendly marine farm clean-energy demonstration project in Laizhou Bay, which is an effort at forming a whole-industry chain for the modern marine-industry: “In the Laizhou Bay, marine farms may serve as the foundation in integrating the ecological fishery industry with offshore wind power and solar power, thus bringing together all forms of marine-based clean-energy projects.”

In addition, ZHU suggested that Shandong could begin discussions with places such as Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Xinjiang on establishing new-energy electricity production bases from which power would be produced and transmitted to Shandong. GCL and other such companies would be given priority in participating in the construction of such facilities. In addition, Shandong should work to obtain more planning for UHV power transmission lines from the central government for the purpose of bringing power to Shandong from the west, and also to have this added to the 14^th Five-year Plan. In ZHU’s view, there is an abundance of solar and wind resources, as well as land, in the west, so with the advancement of technology, bringing such energy onto the grid at affordable prices will be possible. Thus, the area must become a center for clean power generation. What is required in advance are planning and the installation of transmission lines between the west and Shandong.