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David Fishman Profile picture
David Fishman
@pretentiouswhat
China power - econ & policy analysis for RE, nuclear, coal, markets, grid. 12-yr migrant, currently SH Rural development enthusiast @HopkinsNanjing @LantauGroup
Octavio-YBH Profile picture ☙ 🍂🎃🕯️ςгєєקเภ' เՇ гєคɭ🕯️🎃🍂 ❦ Profile picture Jeroen de Jong Profile picture Olímpico de Jesus Moreira Chaves Profile picture wadang Profile picture 10 subscribed
Jul 21 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
To expand on my critique of LCOE....

Whether LCOE makes sense as a tool for your use really depends on who you are and what you're trying to accomplish with your analysis...

Little🧵 If you're building power assets to make money selling power, then LCOE is a useful tool to assess generation costs and determine whether the project will be profitable.

Your focus is your cost of production and the rate you earn for generating power, not end-user tariffs.
Jul 20 • 28 tweets • 8 min read
Sigh. Don't let me catch you misusing Chinese power policy, narratives, or data like this...

Let's break down everything wrong in this post from this (in)famous scientist/activist at Stanford representing the 100% Wind, Water, Solar, Storage (WWSS) movement.
🧵 Image First: Saying "energy type A costs X$ compared to energy type B" is always a red flag.

It's wonk-speak referring to LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) that doesn't affect people in the real world, beause no one pays LCOE for power; they pay the retail price for power.
Jul 16 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
☀️⚡️CHINA SOLAR PV DATA DUMP THREAD:

Industry website BJX just released a very interesting statistical analysis report of solar PV project tenders from the first half of 2024, with tender analysis: project volume, owners, EPC costs and more

I'll cover highlights here: 🧵 Project ownership:

Chinese renewable project owners issued EPC tenders for 94.6GW of solar projects in the first half of 2024.

Of these, 72GW have been awarded so far.

The most active entity issuing tenders is China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) with 11.28GW.Image
Jun 29 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
A silly thread about supposed Chinese "debt-traps" in developing nations is circulating yet again.

I think a meta-review of evidence from experts that looked at and rejected this idea is timely.

Perhaps this'll be a helpful source for the next time it makes the rounds...
🧵Image But first! If you need catching up...

Chinese banks own a lot of foreign debt issued to developing countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, etc., issued especially rapidly during the heady, frenzied early years of the Belt and Road Initiative. This isn't disputed.
Jun 15 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
China Taxicab Chronicles: Mr. Ma, a Realistic Optimist?

I'm headed to Hongqiao, a longish minute cab ride ahead of me. I've had bad luck with non-talkative drivers the last few weeks. But I can't give up. This guy's in his mid 40s and seems friendly. Let's give it a try.

🧵 "Hey Shifu, where are you from?"

"Fuyang. Er, Fuyang, in Anhui" (阜阳)

"Ah Fuyang, I know it. Northern Anhui. My last few taxi drivers have all been from this area. Bengbu, Guoyang, and Shangqiu (in Henan). And now Fuyang."

"Yes, there are many people from Anhui in Shanghai"
May 16 • 44 tweets • 13 min read
"It's unfair. Children in the city always have an advantage, while our children have to work harder for the same chance".

Travelogue: In a Chinese mountain village, Boss Mao shares with me the amazing local history, his thoughts on the hukou system, and his dreams for his kids. Image We're at Nanjianyan Scenic Area in Suichang County, the westernmost part of Lishui in Zhejiang.

We're staying at Boss Mao's guesthouse in Shisuntou Village, pop. 300.

This place wasn't easy to reach - last night we drove an hour up a twisty, foggy mountain road in the dark. It was very sketchy.Image
May 14 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
Let's talk Chinese RVs!

Last month I went down a deep rabbit hole researching the Chinese RV market for fun. So naturally I had to satisfy my curiosity by going to the Shanghai RV Tourism Expo last weekend.

Here's what we found: Image China's RV market is very small, and yet also extremely fragmented.

Total sales volume last year was just a bit under 20,000 units.

For all of China.

At the same time, there are over 300 individual RV companies competing in the space. Competition is rough. Image
May 5 • 50 tweets • 12 min read
"They said Jiang Zemin is a thug...Jiang Zemin has no conscience"

Travelogue: A Zhejiang business owner tells me how the tourism industry developed, his family's struggles with corrupt local officials, and his perspective on how things are changing now, for better and worse.🧵Image The setting is Lishui. Lishui is a small mountainous Zhejiang city, far from the bustle of dynamic economies like Hangzhou or Ningbo.

Lishui is the poorest prefecture-level city in Zhejiang by GDP and GDP per capita. Agriculture and tourism play big roles in the economy. Image
Apr 26 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Ghana and China ink a deal for China National Nuclear Company (CNNC) to supply an HPR1000 reactor to Ghana (!)

I knew this was working in the background, but I guess I never really expected it to happen for real...

Great news for both countries.

A 🧵

energynewsafrica.com/ghana-signs-de… I've been tracking Ghana's progress towards building a civil nuclear power sector for a few years now.

By 2021, they'd operated a miniature neutron source reactor for many years and had also established a long working history with CNNC.

Apr 20 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
I translated this post and sent it to a friend here in China working at a company that builds industrial rooftop solar projects.

His reactions were interesting and illuminating as to the relative market state of solar power installations in the USA vs. China here in 2024... Me: "See this picture? I found it online, from a rooftop solar installation in the United States. The turnkey cost was 610,000 USD. I guess there are about 1000 panels here, at 380W. What do you think?"

Him: "I think the math has some problem. That number can't be right."
Apr 17 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
This is a massive discrepancy - over 45 TWh of "missing" generation betweenChinese power generation stats and the power consumption stats.

I asked around and found the answer - but it was also something I wasn't aware of myself, so I learned something in the process...
Short 🧵 Previously, my understanding had been that National Bureau of Statistics powergen data (reported monthly) excludes distributed generation (like rooftop solar) because they report facilities "at-scale" 规模以上, meaning installations of 6MW or larger.

Actually this is wrong.
Apr 16 • 22 tweets • 6 min read
Rather than me just saying "lmao Noah's a dope", (which believe me, is always my first instinct) let us make this into a learning opportunity and take a detailed look at the thing he has misidentified as a government-run social credit system: Alipay's Zhima Credit platform.

🧵 So yes, that was a screenshot of his friend's Zhima Credit score (aka Sesame Credit) within Alipay.

Alipay, the financial transactions platform developed by Alibaba, is one of the two largest digital payment platforms in China (the other one is WeChat Pay, developed by Tencent). Image
Apr 1 • 21 tweets • 5 min read
An influential Chinese think tank: "Energy Security and New Strategies Institute" (operated by state-owned China Energy Media Group) published its 2024 power report, a comprehensive summary of 2023 data.

I've pulled out some of their key items and added very brief comments 🧵 A note before I begin: I know a lot has been written about 2023 already...most of this isn't new.

It's all good stuff, but I'm mostly writing this to have a handy place on Twitter to store these facts, if anyone (including me) wants to reference them again later this year...
Mar 26 • 21 tweets • 7 min read
A juicy solar scandal is unfolding in Hubei, as reported by CCTV.

Their investigation reveals a large solar PV + agriculture farm in Anlu City, Hubei was likely built on "Prime Farmland" (基本农田).

This land is supposed to be reserved for food production.

(ht @crushspread) Image The CCTV Caijing Investigations report is titled:

"Exposed by CCTV! Spending 8 million RMB to Develop High-Standard Farmland, Two Years Later Converted to Solar PV; Rice Yield Plummets!"

It's honestly some of the best stuff I've ever seen on CCTV.

news.cctv.com/2024/03/25/ART…
Mar 20 • 24 tweets • 7 min read
Faces of Jingmaishan 3: Milk Tea Grandma

I find Grandma sitting in front of her timber home, carefully tending a small charcoal fire.

The sign behind her says "Grandma's Milk Tea".

"Grandma's Milk Tea? So...are you the Grandma?"
"That's me!" she replies cheerfully. Image "How much for a cup?"
"Fifteen yuan. Do you want to try?"

"Okay, we'll have one please"

She motions us to sit on some small stools next to the fire while she prepares the tea in a ceramic pot over the fire, a combination of Pu'er tea, dried flowers, milk, and rock sugar. Image
Feb 27 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
BIG policy notice from China's NDRC and NEA today on the need for grid flexibility investments and upgrades, with targets for 2027 and beyond.

"Guidance Opinions on Strengthening Grid Peaking Energy Storage and Smart Dispatch Capacity Building

A few highlights: Image This is a major document - essentially a near/mid-term manifesto for grid flexibility capacity and storage investments. It is split into sections for:

1. Peaking and Flexibility
2. Storage
3. Smart Dispatch
4. Marketization
5. Organizational Capacity

I'll just cover #1 here.
Feb 21 • 25 tweets • 5 min read
China Taxicab Chronicles 5: Solitary Mr. He

Mr. He picks me up in Shanghai on my way to the maglev station. He looks to be in his late 50s. It's about 7am and I'm pulling a suitcase, clearly heading to the airport.

"Hello, foreign friend. Are you going home for the New Year?" “No, I'm leaving on a business trip for a few days. I already finished my New Year holiday.”
"In Shanghai?"

"No, in my wife's hometown, in Hubei. Ezhou City."
"Ohhh Ezhou City. I know it. It's close to Wuhan."

"That's right. Are you from Hubei? Many people don't know Ezhou".
Feb 13 • 25 tweets • 8 min read
A 🧵 about Chinese Towns, Urbanization, and Housing Demand

If you ever get out of the big cities in China, you've surely passed through a Town, (镇) i.e., an administrative center of a rural area.

Towns fall between Villages and Counties, equivalent to Sub-Districts in cities. Image Towns are hubs for the nearby villages, so they'll have a hospital, middle school, police station, shops, etc. Big enough to have their name on highway exits, but usually <100k people.

If you need a refresher on CN administrative units, here:
Feb 9 • 17 tweets • 9 min read
How do physical malls survive in China when you can order everything online?

Two things...F&B and...experiences. Especially experiences for kids.

Behold, the brand-new Wuyue Shopping Center in Ezhou, Hubei. Image The entire 3F of this mall is dedicated to children's activities, games, and learning (plus half the real estate on the ground floor too).

If your kids aren't playing in a panda slide ball pit with an animatronic dinosaur, are they really playing? Image
Feb 5 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
Pretty major Chinese climate/industrial policy news over the weekend: NDRC called for provincial governments to accelerate a policy mandate for high carbon emitting industries to consume renewable energy.

That's steel, aluminum, cement, petrochemical, etc.

🧵on what this means: This appears to be talking about expanding the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) policy.

That's just a jargony way of saying "a mandatory quota for green power consumption.”

I covered some basics about China's RPS a long time ago in this thread:

Feb 2 • 24 tweets • 5 min read
China Taxicab Chronicles 4: Sensitive Mr. Lu 🧵

As he helps me stuff my suitcase into the trunk of his taxi at Pudong Airport, I spot a crate of apples in Mr. Lu's trunk. Lu has shoulder-length hair and looks kind of...artsy, like a musician.

"Hey Aksu apples! Are they good?" "Ah those apples...I don't know. They were a gift. I haven't had one yet."

"I heard these Aksu apples are really just regular Fuji apples, grown in Aksu. It's a branding trick".

(Fuji is almost the only commercial apple variety in China. Aksu is a city in Xinjiang).