The 2nd Science and Technology Innovation Conference of the Electric Power Industry, hosted by the China Electricity Council, was successfully held in Guangzhou from May 8th to 9th. With the theme of "Innovation-Driven Development, Intelligence Leading the Future", the conference fully implemented the spirits of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Second and Third Plenary Sessions of the 20th Central Committee, implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on scientific and technological innovation, gathered industry wisdom, scientifically judged the new trends in the development of the electric power industry, discussed new paths for breakthroughs in scientific and technological innovation, and drew a new blueprint for the high-quality development of the industry, contributing to the construction of a strong science and technology country.

Li Meng, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, chairman of the China Association for Sustainable Development, and former vice minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Huang Xuenong, supervisory director of the National Energy Administration, attended the conference and delivered speeches. Xin Baoan, chairman of the China Electricity Council and chairman of the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization, delivered a keynote report. Qian Chaoyang, director, general manager and deputy party secretary of China Southern Power Grid Co., Ltd., delivered a welcome speech. Yang Kun, secretary of the party committee and executive vice chairman of the China Electricity Council, presided over the conference. Leaders of the council and relevant persons in charge of electric power enterprises attended the conference. The conference invited well-known experts in energy and electricity to give special reports, and held the 2024 Electric Power Innovation Award ceremony and released major scientific and technological innovation achievements and special reports of the industry.

In his speech, Li Meng said that this conference thoroughly implemented the arrangements of the Central Economic Work Conference and the National Two Sessions, promoted the in-depth integration of scientific and technological innovation and industry, accelerated the cultivation of new productive forces, and injected new impetus into the high-quality development of the electric power industry. He pointed out that innovation is the primary driving force leading development, and scientific and technological innovation in the electric power industry is the key to promoting energy transformation and high-quality economic development. In recent years, scientific and technological innovation in the electric power industry has made remarkable achievements, promoting the continuous improvement of energy and electricity self-sufficiency capacity, and forming a multi-driven energy and electricity production system. The China Electricity Council should seize the strategic opportunity of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, further deepen the role of the platform, work with major electric power enterprises and research institutions to implement national green development policies and arrangements, integrate technology and talent resources, and help build a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system.

Huang Xuenong pointed out in his speech that China has become the country with the largest scale and fastest development of new energy grid connection in the world, and scientific and technological innovation has strongly supported the safe and stable supply of electricity and green and low-carbon development. With the in-depth advancement of energy transformation, new technologies, new business forms and new models such as smart grids, new energy storage and virtual power plants continue to emerge. The rapid development of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and their integrated innovation with various fields of electric power are leading a new wave of electric power scientific and technological innovation. On the new journey, the electric power industry should take the initiative to benchmark, give better play to the role of scientific and technological innovation as the primary driving force for development, empower the transformation and upgrading of the industry with digital technologies, strengthen the research on key core technologies, expand the application scenarios of integrated innovation, and build an open and collaborative innovation system, so as to make new and greater contributions to supporting and leading the construction of a new power system and cultivating and developing new productive forces with scientific and technological innovation.

Xin Baoan delivered a keynote report entitled "Empowering Development with Science and Technology, Leading the Future with Innovation, Contributing to Building a Strong Country in Electric Power Science and Technology". He said that in recent years, with the goal of achieving high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement, the electric power industry has focused on the major strategic needs of building a new power system, climbed the world's peak of electric power science and technology, made new breakthroughs in key core technologies, achieved new results in the digital and intelligent transformation of electric power, opened up new prospects in the reform of the scientific and technological system, and made new progress in participating in international cooperation. He pointed out that the "14th Five-Year Plan" period is a critical period for China to achieve the goal of carbon peak and the construction of a new power system. Facing the new situation and new tasks, the electric power industry should keep in mind "the great of the country", adhere to the "four orientations", improve the innovation system, and highlight problem orientation, demand orientation and goal orientation, so as to strive for the early building of a world power in science and technology. First, adhere to independent innovation, seize the commanding heights of electric power science and technology development, accelerate the research on core technologies, strengthen basic research, and strengthen the construction of electric power standard system; second, adhere to collaborative innovation, vigorously cultivate new productive forces, promote the integrated development of innovation chain and industrial chain, vigorously promote the transformation of achievements, and strengthen the application of artificial intelligence; third, adhere to system innovation, improve the overall efficiency of the innovation system, improve the innovation system, stimulate innovation vitality, and strengthen the construction of experimental capabilities; fourth, adhere to cooperative innovation, create an open environment for scientific and technological innovation, integrate into the global innovation network, vigorously implement the "going out" strategy, accelerate the realization of high-level self-reliance and self-improvement in electric power science and technology, and contribute to the building of a socialist modern power and the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

On behalf of China Southern Power Grid Co., Ltd., Qian Chaoyang extended warm congratulations on the convening of the conference. He pointed out that at present, the scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation represented by artificial intelligence are accelerating, and the energy and electricity technological transformation has entered an intensive active period and an accelerated expansion period. It is hoped that Chinese electric power enterprises will strengthen cooperation in scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement, innovation and overcoming difficulties, industrial co-creation and win-win, carry out more cross-enterprise technological innovation exchanges in the construction of a new power system, and discuss strategies to solve the difficulties in transformation; carry out more cross-industry technological innovation exchanges in the construction of a new energy system, and discuss strategies for collaborative transformation mechanisms; carry out more cross-professional technological innovation exchanges in "artificial intelligence + digital power grid", and discuss strategies to overcome the sticking points in transformation; continuously promote the application of advanced energy and electricity technologies and the digital and intelligent upgrading of industries, and jointly make new contributions to ensuring national energy security and the high-quality development of energy and electricity.

Yang Kun, secretary of the party committee and executive vice chairman of the China Electricity Council, presided over the conference.

In the special report session, Wang Enge, chairman of Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory and former president of Peking University, delivered a report entitled "Materials Leading Innovation in the Electric Power Industry"; Chen Guoping, vice general manager and party member of State Grid Corporation of China, delivered a report entitled "Thoughts on the Innovative Development of New Power System Equipment"; Rao Hong, chief scientist of China Southern Power Grid and director of the National Key Laboratory of DC Transmission Technology, delivered a report entitled "Development and Challenges of New Power Systems"; Chen Qingquan, academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering, president of the World Electric Vehicle Association and distinguished chair professor of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, delivered a report entitled "Artificial Intelligence Empowering New Productive Forces, a New Journey of Energy Revolution and Automobile Revolution"; Du Xinfeng, deputy general manager of Hangzhou Yushu Technology, delivered a report entitled "Development and Prospect of Robot Embodied Intelligence". With profound insight and forward-looking perspective, they focused on the in-depth integration and key application of scientific and technological innovation and artificial intelligence in the energy field, closely met the technical tackling needs of energy transformation under the "dual carbon" goal, and analyzed and prospected the development trend of China's scientific and technological innovation, the path selection and challenges of building a new energy system, etc.

The conference collected 100 major scientific and technological innovation achievements from the industry and compiled them into a book, focusing on "breaking bottlenecks", anchoring "promoting transformation" and highlighting "strengthening applications", comprehensively demonstrating the scientific and technological innovation value of electric power industry enterprises from three dimensions; at the conference, 5 major achievements were released, including "Key Technologies and Engineering Applications of 35kV Long-distance High-temperature Superconducting Cables", "Dianhong IoT Operating System", "Key Technologies and Applications of New Generation Low-energy Post-combustion Carbon Capture", "Independent and Controllable Intelligent Control System for Heavy-duty Gas Turbines", and "Complete Sets of Technologies and Equipment for Safe and Efficient Development of Offshore Wind Power and Their Industrialization", which concentratedly showed the progress of the electric power industry in fulfilling its mission of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement, accelerating the creation of new productive forces in energy and electricity, resolutely winning the battle of key core technologies, and realizing high-level self-reliance and self-improvement in energy and electricity science and technology.

The Science and Technology Center of the China Electricity Council released the "Annual Development Report on Scientific and Technological Innovation in China's Electric Power Industry (2024)". Li Shanpeng, vice president of BYD Energy Storage Power Research Institute, made an exchange speech on "Starting from the End: Technological Innovation Helps the Development of New Power Systems"; Zhang Jianmin, chairman of Zhongtian Technology Marine Cable Co., Ltd., made an exchange speech on "Marine New Energy Interconnection Transmission Drives the Innovative Development of UHV DC Marine Cables". Xu Haiqing, deputy director of the Science and Technology Innovation Department of State Grid, Ma Nan, deputy general manager of the Science and Technology Innovation Department of China Southern Power Grid, and Pei Aiguo, general manager of the Science, Technology, Information and Equipment Department of China Energy Engineering Group, delivered reports on "Promoting the In-depth Integration of Scientific and Technological Innovation and Industrial Innovation - Practice in Building the Chain Leader of the Modern Industrial Chain of New Power Systems", "Transforming from 'Supporting Service Type' to 'Leading and Driving Type', Striving to Be a Vanguard in Scientific and Technological Self-reliance and Self-improvement", and "China Energy Engineering Group's Scientific and Technological Innovation System and Key Technology Research", respectively.

Liu Yongdong, deputy secretary-general of the China Electricity Council and director of the Standardization Management Center, presided over the high-end dialogue session. Guests such as Zhao Weiming, deputy director of the Science, Technology and Digital Intelligence Department of State Power Investment Corporation, Lu Yong, vice president of China Southern Power Grid Research Institute, Liu Zhitan, member of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of National Energy Group Science and Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd., Zhang Fan, director of the Science and Technology Innovation Department (Digital Department) of China Electrical Equipment, Dong Weisi, vice president of China Government and Enterprise Solutions of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and Zhang Su, director of Longi Green Energy Technology Innovation Center, conducted in-depth discussions and exchanges on different professional topics such as the construction of scientific and technological innovation systems.

The 2024 Electric Power Innovation Award ceremony was held at the conference, and the participating leaders presented awards to the winning representatives, including special prizes, first prizes and second prizes. Three parallel forums on "Electric Power Scientific and Technological Achievements Transformation and Intellectual Property Operation", "Artificial Intelligence + Digital Power Grid", "Electric Power Scientific and Technological Innovation and Standardized Interactive Development", and a closed-door meeting of the 2025 Working Conference of the China Electricity Council Science and Technology Innovation Promotion Committee were held simultaneously.

This conference was hosted by China Southern Power Grid Research Institute Co., Ltd., China Southern Power Grid Digital Grid Group Co., Ltd., and China Electricity Council Science and Technology Center. Relevant representatives from government departments, electric power enterprises, scientific research institutions and institutions of higher learning attended the conference.