Riding the wind of rebirth

Liu Zhigang and Sha Luo exchanged a glance, and both of them, forgetting about their meals, pulled out their notebooks as well.

This is actually a management approach issue. The Lianhe Township Green Energy Project is the first of its kind in the country. You can't expect one dispatched cadre and two township cadres to understand the situation. The person who is most familiar with the Green Energy Project here is actually Tu Liangzhi, who watched it being built step by step.

Zhou Zhi was taken aback by the group's presence and quickly said with a smile, "Brother Liu, Brother Shaluo, let's eat first and chat while we eat. We'll compile a report on everything we just talked about with Brother Sun and give it to everyone later."

Liu Zhigang and Sha Luo then relaxed: "Yes, yes, let's eat and chat at the same time."

“Besides irrigation, the expansion of this green energy project is also very important,” Zhou Zhi said. “Since the power company has given us the green light, we can continue to expand the installed capacity and convert it into marketable electricity.”

"Guess what the key is here?"

"It should be the stability of the power supply, right?" Liu Zhigang said. "I learned a bit about the situation before I came. Our autonomous region is relatively good. Solar power is relatively stable, but wind power is difficult to stabilize. Hydropower depends on rainfall. The rainfall in our autonomous prefecture is too distinct in season, and the water storage capacity of the forests is not particularly strong. We are backed by a huge nature reserve, so it is relatively stable. If we want to expand the capacity, we will probably encounter some limitations."

“Brother Liu is right. The most important thing about commercial electricity is stability,” Zhou Zhi said. “Therefore, we must pay attention to the utilization of reservoirs.”

“The reservoir is like a large battery for storing energy. Whether it’s solar or wind energy, it’s best to first convert it into the potential energy generated after water is pumped out, and then output it stably through hydropower. Although some energy will be lost in the process, this exchange is necessary.”

"Therefore, we should not blindly pursue an increase in electricity consumption and reduce the necessary redundancy of wind and hydropower. We should maintain our current allocation ratio. For example, half of solar energy is actually used for pumping water up the mountain to convert it into electricity at night. Everyone should always remember that in the power supply system, balance is more important than output."

"Don't worry, everyone. For managers, knowing this much is enough. The rest will be handled by a professional team." Seeing that the people looked a bit serious, Zhou Zhi suddenly realized that he had spoken too professionally and quickly stopped himself: "The current green energy projects are basically enough for our own use, but in the future, if we want to develop and not affect revenue, expansion is inevitable. I'm just saying this here to give everyone an understanding of the future."

“Well, I won’t go into details about the more specific aspects of green energy, such as wind power equipment maintenance, solar energy equipment maintenance, and substation maintenance,” Sun Jiacai said. “However, the financial management related to green energy is a bit complicated. Not only are income and expenditure separate, but it also involves power dispatch agreements with the power company.”

"What is a power dispatch agreement?" Sharo asked.

“Our green energy system has been connected to the state power grid. In addition to meeting our own needs, we can also sell it to the power company,” Zhou Zhi said. “Our town has two national-level important agricultural bases, whose power supply must be guaranteed. In addition, pig farms and chicken farms also need uninterrupted power to ensure the production activities of hatching and heat preservation. Therefore, ensuring power supply is very important.”

“Everyone is aware of the situation in Liangshan Prefecture, especially during the dry season in winter, when many townships have long faced the problem of power outages. Therefore, our agreement with the power company clearly stipulated that the electricity we sold to the power company, in addition to a portion being used as income, should be used as a reserve for electricity use during the winter power shortage period. It is equivalent to storing a portion of the electricity we generate with the power company first, and then taking it out for use in winter. Before our reserve is used up, the power company cannot take any power restriction measures against us for any other reason.”

"You've really thought this through," Liu Zhigang said with great admiration. "Logically speaking, with two national-level bases here, the prefecture should at least guarantee our town's power supply, right?"

“Let’s make sure things stay calm afterward,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “That way, if anyone encounters a problem in the future, they’ll have a reason to complain to the state. Sometimes, when subordinates are dealing with superiors, having a reason to complain is very important.”

Everyone here works in grassroots management, and Zhou Zhi's words really struck a chord with them, so they all nodded in agreement. Sha Luo said, "Electricity is indeed extremely important. Our township often suffers from this; even food processing relies on diesel engines—it's such a hassle!"

“Next up are the agricultural projects,” Sun Jiacai said. “Aside from the daily production of the villagers, the collective projects include two major seedling bases for Moroccan pomegranates and cherries. There are also collective orchards, silage pastures, purple potato bases, buckwheat bases, silage projects, pig farms, chicken farms, and oh right, there’s also a demonstration base for penned goat breeding.”

Tu Liangzhi is very familiar with these projects. The management work is not as professional as that of green energy projects, but the area is large and involves many people. It is not easy to manage any project well, especially since there are many related relationships involved, which is quite a test of one's skills.

For example, silage pastures, purple potatoes, and buckwheat need to be rotated scientifically. This requires unified planning and management, and also involves subsequent food and feed processing, as well as matching with the scale of poultry and livestock.

For example, pomegranates and cherries involve not only the process of developing agricultural research bases into agricultural production bases, but also meeting the pace of the state's industrial planning and layout, and finally achieving economies of scale in commodity sales. There are many considerations involved in this process.

In addition, it also involves management work such as water resource allocation and human resource allocation.

Fortunately, everyone had something to say and some practical experience, so they quickly filled in the gaps by contributing their own words.

However, Zhou Zhi still came up with a suggestion: "Before we expand our scale, I think that in order to increase the enthusiasm of the villagers to open up orchards, we should introduce a large number of pomegranate seedlings from Puge."

“Pug? Isn’t that a local variety?” Tu Liangzhi asked. “Doesn’t that contradict our original intention of promoting Moroccan pomegranates in our township?”

“These local pomegranate varieties don’t need to be too good,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “They’re not the soft-seeded pomegranates from Huili, but rather sour pomegranates.”

"Why introduce sour pomegranates? To make wine?" The pomegranate wine that Zhou Zhi brought from Huili left a deep impression on Tu Liangzhi, who figured out the brewing method without a teacher.

“I understand!” Shalo said, “We can choose these cheap, sturdy sour pomegranate trees to plant. After they’ve taken root for a year, they’ll be top-notch rootstock!”

“That’s right!” Zhou Zhi said, “This way we can quickly expand the propagation and form a large pomegranate base with towns as units as soon as possible!”

"We don't need to go too far, there are plenty of those in Meigu." Shaluo grinned, revealing two rows of big white teeth: "Leave it to me!"

"There's nothing new in agriculture; compared to the others, I'm the least familiar with it. However, the demonstration of penned goat farming is quite important. The main issue isn't feeding, but rather it's a crucial part of protecting our soil, water, and vegetation." (End of Chapter)