Energy Bureau Announces 17 Administrative Approval Catalogs

Recently, according to the requirements of the State Council, the National Energy Administration announced the list of administrative approvals and retained 17 energy approving rights. On the same day, the list of administrative approvals was published by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Securities Regulatory Commission, the Forestry Bureau, and the Statistics Bureau.

Judging from the composition of the Energy Agency's examination and approval business, fixed assets investment project approval, provincial energy development planning approval, hydropower and nuclear power project approval, regional energy comprehensive development planning approval, and coal bed methane commodity allocation plan approval are core businesses and are related to energy. The overall situation of development.

The approval of energy fixed asset investment projects includes four categories: approval of pumped storage power station projects; investment in non-cross-border, inter-provincial (district, city) DC projects of ± 400 kV and above and non-cross-border, interprovincial (region, city) 750 KV and 1000 kV AC power grid projects are approved; new projects with an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tons or above are approved in the national planning mining areas; and projects for the import, storage and transportation of LNG are approved.

According to the 2013 “Catalogue of Investment Projects Approved by the Government”, approvals for hydropower stations built on major rivers, project approval for thermal power plants (excluding distributed gas power generation), and approval of coal-fired thermal power stations (excluding coal-fired back pressure thermal power) The approval of power grid projects for cross-border (provincial, district, and city) projects is within the administrative approval list of the National Development and Reform Commission.

The 21st Century Business Herald reporter was informed that the National Energy Administration is still the organizer of the above project approval, but the approval document was issued in the name of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Among the 17 approval authorities of the Energy Bureau, the issuance of the licenses for the power business license, the electric network access license, and the license for the installation (repair and trial) of electric power facilities were delegated to all dispatched offices of the Energy Bureau, reducing the level of management.

In addition, the "Three-Determined" program of the Energy Bureau also gives it the power to audit transmission and distribution tariffs across regional power grids, and handles it with the National Development and Reform Commission. This is the only one within the scope of the responsibilities of the Energy Administration to examine and approve prices, and it is also a clear-cut extension of authority. .

Compared with the simple administration of decentralization, the authority of the Energy Bureau was greatly reduced, and the authority of the local energy management department increased. In the process of reorganization between the Energy Administration and the Electricity Regulatory Commission, the examination and approval of the terms of reference are the main points of the parties' game. After the "three-fixed" plan of the Energy Bureau was issued, insiders of the National Development and Reform Commission believe that the Energy Bureau has been cut back.

According to the data from the Energy Bureau, 21 administrative approval items were cancelled and decentralized in 2013, accounting for 29% of the original administrative approval items. Among them, the decentralized wind power station project approval, decentralization of distributed gas power generation project approval, cancellation of direct power purchase approval, cancellation of coal business licenses, production licenses, cancellation of natural gas CBM external cooperation contract approval and other major impact.

Recently, the National Energy Administration has also improved the examination and approval management mechanism for conventional coal-fired thermal power projects and changed the model for assessing the layout of thermal power projects one by one. Experts from the Policy Research Center of the China National Energy Research Institute believe that this shows that the Energy Administration's attitude towards project management has shifted from excessive emphasis on prior approval to the supervision of events and afterwards.

According to statistics from the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, in this round of decentralization reforms, the departments and units involved in the devolution of power by the Energy Bureau include: the Electric Power Division, the Coal Division, the Oil and Gas Division, the New Energy Division, the Market Supervision Department, the Electric Safety Supervision Department, and the Qualification Center. , dam center and so on.

At the 2014 Energy Work Conference, the Director of Energy Wu Xinxiong stated: “Continuing cancellation and decentralization of administrative examination and approval matters, all those who can be decentralized will be decentralized to the local government, and all those who can be handed over to the market will be handed over to the market. Innovation approval (approval) filing mechanism For the retained approvals, approvals, and filings, we will further optimize the administrative examination and approval procedures, simplify pre-approval conditions for project approval, establish an online publicity and approval system, and accelerate the speed of sunshine approval and deadlines, and increase service efficiency and transparency."

In order to ensure that the authority for canceling the decentralization is granted, the Energy Bureau will strengthen follow-up supervision of decentralization, and as one of the key points of market supervision in 2014, it will prevent the appearance of disguised approvals and false decentralization.

The 21st Century Business Herald learned that after the National Energy Administration canceled and decentralized the first batch of approval rights, it issued a notice internally and conducted self-examination on the decentralization of the simple administration. Self-inspection involves:

Whether there is an illegal transfer of the examination and approval items to the subordinate institutions or the association to continue the examination and approval; whether there is a split, merger, or reorganization of the examination and approval items to replace similar approvals with new names and entries; whether there is a disguised form of approval in some name .

Whether or not the State Council department has authorized the provincial government departments to exercise the power of review and approval of the administrative examination and approval matters devolved to local authorities; whether there are provincial government departments to retain and approve the approval projects delegating to the relevant local government departments under the provincial level Right situation.

Regarding the administrative examination and approval items that are devolved, whether the relevant laws, regulations or regulatory documents have been cleared or modified; the application for examination and approval of administrative examination and approval items has been cancelled. All applications that have not been accepted shall not be accepted again, and all applications accepted shall not be continued.