this man is not calm

Chapter 420: A profound meaning
After a lifetime, across the barriers of time and space, Young Master Jin finally experienced the long-lost pleasure of eating skewers and bragging in a small restaurant in his previous life.

After the staff set up the projector and connected it to the computer, well-made slides flashed one by one, accompanied by Jin Shang's low, confident and convincing lines, which were almost the same as the big scammers who used PPT to start a business twenty years later.

The difference is that the slides shown in front of you still contain a lot of useful information.

The previous half-understanding talks about the hydrolysis of fiber and hemi-fiber to extract crystalline glucose, and the fermentation of lignin to help ruminants digest and absorb, and increase the output quality of dairy and beef cattle, etc., are just empty promises based on current technological capabilities. In theory, they can all work, similar to hydrogen fuel cells and solid-state batteries. But when they will be able to leave the laboratory and have commercial value, maybe five, ten, twenty years, or even half a century later, no one can say for sure.

The first thing that attracts attention is the issue of cashless payment scenarios. Ordinary people may only see the convenience of transactions, avoid frequent change problems, and avoid some risks. However, from the perspective of regulators, it actually has a deeper and important role.

When it comes to economic statistics, i.e., gross national product (GDP), the choice of caliber is as important as the value, and in some cases, the former is even more important. Due to limited manpower and means, the current GDP only counts the output value and transaction amount above a certain scale, and the complicated private economic activities are not actually included.

Transactions such as buying vegetables at the market, setting up a takeaway stall, repairing shoes, shoeing horseshoes, collecting scrap, hawking on the street, and hiring a private nanny and temporary workers are not included at all.

Some people may think that these are trivial matters and not worth mentioning, but when so many are added together, the scale is terrifying.

I still remember that in my previous life, when I was just a college graduate and a new employee of a state-owned enterprise, there was a Guokui stall in front of the factory with delicious taste. After getting familiar with the "Guokui Brother", I more or less understood the current situation of roadside stalls. They would not open the stall when it was windy or rainy, and would take a break when it was cold or hot. They would close for a month during the summer and winter vacations every year, and would take their family on a one-month vacation during the spring when the flowers bloomed or the autumn when the weather was clear and cool.

They live a much more comfortable life than the white-collar workers who graduated from prestigious universities. It is not a problem for them to make a surplus of 200,000 yuan a year, which makes people envious.

Perhaps this "pot-kui brother" is one of the few who are doing relatively well, but it also proves that the small and micro economy that "jumps out of the three realms and is not within the five elements" is not so insignificant.

No one can say for sure how much of the total GDP this aspect actually generates, whether it is 5%, 10%, 20%, or some even say with certainty that it is at least 40%.

In short, no one can figure it out.

This is just as ridiculous as some countries including cow dung in their calculations, and calculating the rent for one's own home every year. It's as ridiculous as economists feeding each other shit and still including it in the double GDP.

Jokes aside, statistical data is an important basis for high-level decision-making, so the more accurate the better.

This is also the reason why relevant departments always like to withdraw data from Jinxi Mall for research. Buyers and sellers can see everything at a glance, without any deception. Although it cannot reflect the overall situation, it is still of great reference value for the increase or decrease in consumption in some cities.

In the past, some colleagues could still fool us, but now the work coordinators can just make up data without thinking and throw the online shopping trend chart they got at us to slap us in the face.

In order to demonstrate Jinxi Culture's technological strength in cashless payment scenarios, Jin Shang took out four powerful weapons.

The first one is that it has already taken shape. Jinxi Culture has brought together basic operators and some hardware support providers to form an open technical specification alliance for low-cost short-range wireless connection data and voice communications. This thing is actually Bluetooth. At present, Jin Shang has given it a nice name, Perilla Wireless Direct Connection System. Perilla is a herb with small purple-red flowers, symbolizing purity and elegance.

Its biggest advantage is that it can connect directly to the Internet without too many preconditions, and its application scenarios are also very rich. However, the shortcomings of the first-generation technology are still too obvious, and its anti-interference ability is too poor, which affects the quality of communication. Even if the transmission rate is as high as more than 700 KBS, there are still many obstacles to use.

The future prospects are bright, but for now, just take a look and reserve a spot first.

The second is Near Field Communication (NFC), which has application scenarios including card readers, inductive cards, point-to-point communication, mobile payment using mobile terminals, electronic ticketing, access control, mobile identity recognition, anti-counterfeiting, etc.

It is obvious that this technology is much more reliable than the current immature Bluetooth technology. The technical standards and related patents have been applied for, and the possibility of popularization and application is still quite high. It is a bit difficult to expand it on a large scale, but a small-scale pilot project will not be a problem.

When Jin Shang demonstrated a series of operations that have been put into use, including online ticket booking, online payment, identity recognition, and offline pickup, the participants who originally thought it was just a bragging contest finally became interested.

Especially the emergence of handheld scanning devices and the emergence of the third interactive technology, the QR code, were shocking.

“Do you have the QR code technology?”

"It has been invented for more than two years. We have been testing it in many scenarios, but it has not been widely promoted. Of course, this does not affect our collection of patent fees. After all, this thing is really too useful."

The principle is not complicated at all, it is even a little too simple. The key is who is the first to think of it and realize its value.

Before the advent of electronic computers and the rapid improvement in computing power, QR codes had almost no value. Now it is different. Even a layman, with a little understanding, knows that this thing is simply a super killer that can change the current status of the Internet.

As for the QR code scanning function, to be honest, before the advent of the smartphone era, there was no way to achieve active scanning and real-time identification, but in customized feature phones, it is not difficult to add Internet access and download software that displays QR codes.

By now, viewers who have some basic IT knowledge basically know what kind of company Jinxi Culture is. It is not a model innovation company that throws out various gimmicks just to play with concepts. Instead, it is a super unicorn that truly holds a large amount of high-tech and is waiting for the development of the times and the improvement of infrastructure, and then making a big killing.

Any one of these technologies is enough to support an IT technology company for twenty years of glory. It is hard to say whether it will make money or not, but at least there will be no shortage of investors for now.

Just when everyone thought there was nothing to be surprised about, the announcement of the fourth technology still surprised people a little.

"Wireless LAN, is it a universal standard jointly developed by you and Telecom? And this mobile hotspot (WIFI), the maximum speed is 2Mbps, it's really too fast..."

The simplified first-generation commercial version of the ADSL high-speed network, which is about to be expanded on a pilot basis, is only 1.5Mbps. In other words, as long as the hardware can keep up, there will be almost no problem in establishing a wireless LAN.

However, the high costs of manufacturing, developing, upgrading, improving and mass producing dedicated chips and supporting electronic components cannot be solved in a short time. In other words, these can only be regional pilot projects in the short term, which are not profitable and cannot be promoted at all.

A park consisting of several blocks is enough.

Just like the "big brick"-like tablet computer that Jin Shang asked someone to try to make, it suffered huge losses and the people just tried it out by themselves, which made them laugh.

At present, the only successful case is in the field of movie tickets. The more promising ones are still QR codes and NFC technology, as these two have the greatest hope of being implemented.

Bluetooth technology requires too much hardware support. Wireless LAN and mobile hotspots do have bright prospects, but their impact is too great. We may have to engage in patent lawsuits with companies that have overlapping technologies, and even deal with international lawsuits in the future.

There are so many technology companies that are determined to make a difference in the IT Internet industry. Jinxi Culture is just a rising star, but now it seems that it is not a latecomer that follows in the footsteps of others, but a big company with strong strength to fight for deep core technologies.

"It seems that your company's technical accumulation in local area networks and near-field network interactions is indeed considerable. No wonder the telecommunications company is very inclined to cooperate for mutual benefit."

Putting aside the fact that the two have common interests in the fields of PHS and mobile local calls, the opening up of the LAN is a key link in connecting the last connected users for telecommunications infrastructure operators that are likely to divest themselves of mobile communications and focus on the Internet in the future, which is roughly equivalent to the pain point of the last mile of e-commerce express delivery.

There is actually more that can be said, but Jin is not prepared to go into more depth, such as cloud servers, edge computing, P2P distributed networks, blockchain, etc. A large data center is not the end at all. Many more that may be larger than this will need to be built in the future.

How can you call yourself an Internet giant if you don't even consume 1 million kWh of electricity a day? As for future vision planning, there is no concrete evidence to prove it, so the most important thing next is new energy and DC power supply system.

The key to a smart city lies in the resources, data computing power and energy supply.

Especially the last one. With the advancement of urbanization, big cities like Beijing are expanding faster and faster. Correspondingly, the supply gap of urban power systems is getting bigger and bigger, and the stability of the power grid needs to be improved urgently.

In the report submitted by Jinxi Culture, there is a very important explanation, which is the "virtual power plant" solution that seems to be able to solve some of the problems.

"If the power grid has an oversupply of energy, the previous methods of handling it are either to arrange peak shaving and valley filling, pumped storage, arrange for factories with high consumption to start working at night, or require upstream power stations to shut down generators. At present, coal-fired thermal generators and hydropower are the main ones. The cost of starting and stopping equipment ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. The total cost is huge and the loss is not small. If the response is not timely and an accident occurs, it will be even worse. If the power grid is undersupplying, it is actually more troublesome. It requires upstream generators to start at full capacity to replenish energy, but the more urgent the need is, the more painful it is to be ordered to disconnect the power grid..."

The traditional power grid system is direct and lacks flexibility, like a shaky shoulder pole, with energy supply on one end and load on the other. Ideally, the two should be roughly balanced, but the actual situation is never that ideal.
The emergence of peak and valley electricity is one aspect. With the development of cities, the fluctuations are becoming more and more severe. Frequent peak shaving and valley filling is not only troublesome, but also extremely wasteful. The urban power supply system is increasingly in need of solving this problem.

"Are you saying that data centers and DC power systems, new energy power stations, and large-capacity energy storage systems can alleviate this major problem? This is not new. Energy storage methods, overall coordination, west-to-east power transmission, etc. are all being promoted..."

"No, no, no, you misunderstood. The 'virtual power plant' I mentioned does not actually have the ability to generate electricity independently. In other words, it can be regarded as a passive power grid within a park..."

"How do we generate electricity?"

"You see, this is the rigidity of thinking. Generally speaking, the power grid can indeed take the approach of cutting off power to cope with peak power consumption when power is insufficient, but this is too rigid. When power consumption is underestimated, it is not so easy to increase the load. Suppose, based on actual demand, the power grid requires a certain park's DC power grid to use 10,000 kWh less electricity within a specific period of time, and is willing to pay 20 cents per kWh as compensation. Then the park will increase the temperature of the central air-conditioning in several large office buildings by three degrees, temporarily stop using escalators that can be used or not, take high-power electrical appliances offline, cut off the supply of electric buses and commercial charging piles, and turn off landscape lights. Can the money from the 10,000 kWh of electricity be earned?"

As long as it can substantially reduce the burden on the power grid, whether it is supplying energy or reducing the load, as long as 10,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity are saved, the power grid will give money. Isn't it equivalent to a "virtual power plant" that does not exist but actually plays the same role?

The same is true in reverse. During peak electricity consumption periods, the power grid will reduce the price of electricity by half, and would even rather pay you to use electricity, because the cost of directing upstream power stations to disconnect from the grid or start energy storage and improve the power grid is greater than paying you to let the park use electricity. It originally cost 50,000 yuan to solve the problem, but now it only costs 30,000 yuan. Isn’t it wonderful?

It took nearly twenty minutes, with pictures and texts, for the experts to finally understand what Jin Shang's "virtual power plant" was.

"This is not new. Natural gas power generation in Europe and the United States has this situation. If the dispatch is not effective, the gas station is full, the terminal power consumption is not timely, and the storage and logistics costs increase, in order to free up storage capacity, it would rather pay people to use it. Of course, the increase in price when there is a shortage is also terrible. Once an accident occurs in winter, such as pipeline damage or line failure, it is not uncommon for the price to double or even several times the amount."

The principle is the same as that of being squeezed out of a long or short position in the futures market. Stop loss must be decisive to avoid greater losses.

In the urban power supply system, the complex and changeable supply and demand give the "virtual power plant" a chance to survive.

but……

"Your idea is feasible in theory, but in reality... the power grid cannot afford to suffer this loss."

Do you understand the difference between big king and small king?

Paying money?
I would rather give up electricity!

Power outages don’t mean that you can’t use it!

Jin Shang had expected this reaction. After the buzzing discussion and laughter subsided, Jin Shang raised his finger and said leisurely:

"Who said that the city power grid should provide the electricity? Isn't the setting of peak and valley electricity prices for this purpose? Since it is a system operation, then from upstream to downstream, all must abide by the same rules. For example, the gap in selling electricity at a loss can be made up by upstream power stations, which can lower the on-grid electricity price or even charge negative electricity prices."

Who says supplying electricity to the grid will definitely make money?
Others think the gift is too much and don't want it, but you insist on giving it to them. It's reasonable for me to charge you some impolite compensation.

As soon as Jin Shang finished speaking, everyone suddenly understood everything as if they had been enlightened.

Yes, since we can sell electricity at negative prices, why can’t we buy electricity at negative prices?

As a balancer between supply and demand, can we make a little profit from the price difference?
If you take the pork out of the refrigerator and put it back, you may still get some lard on your hands. What's more, it takes a lot of effort to move something as dangerous as electricity from the production end to the consumption end, so you should make some hard-earned money, right?

In essence, the urban power grid is not a power station or a load, but a carrier like vehicles and ships.

What's more, there are benefits to doing so. Thermal power consumes a lot of coal, causes large amounts of pollution and carbon emissions, and is not a priority for use, but it should be suppressed as a priority when it is time to phase it out.

Not convinced?
Turn off the generator. You have been paid, so do it if you are willing to do it. If not, get out. There are plenty of people who will do it if you don't want to.

"The load side and the energy supply side are becoming more and more complex, which means that the power grid's energy and work center must be focused on certain aspects. Stability and no failures are the key. Major blackouts occur in North America every few years, and we should learn from them."

To put it simply, the function of micro-adjustment is delegated to the sub-network with remote response. At this time, the advantages of the DC power supply system are revealed. There are not so many considerations of AC power transmission, and there is no risk of phase change failure. It has flexible access and low consumption, which is really suitable for the future development needs of urban power grids.

Of course, there are still shortcomings. The research and development of converter stations and supporting equipment, and the development of UHV technology, will be the top priority.

The previous model that lacked remote response capabilities was really too backward. It generated electricity when it was generated and used electricity when it was used. It was far less flexible and convenient than the virtual power plant.

There are no complicated prerequisites required. All you need is a small room, a set of load power resource tables, and sufficiently powerful computing power and algorithms to directly call on your disposable network to complete the tasks of the city's power grid.

The power grid covered by the so-called "smart city" has become a platform-type center for bidding. The thermal power station reduces the price by 2 cents, and the electricity load is subsidized by 1 cent. Do you want to do it?
If they don't do it, and give them a little more, maybe someone will be willing to do it. After all, there is more than one thermal power plant, and more than one smart power plant and passive load network connected.

You may look down on the price difference of one or two cents, but it's enough if someone does.

The data centers and new energy power stations under Jinxi Culture are actually enhanced versions of virtual power plants, with more complete supply and demand, and better ability to meet the remote response needs of urban networks.

"It sounds interesting. Let's make today's meeting minutes more detailed, add the inspection materials and popular science slides, and we can find a time to expand the meeting and discuss the feasibility."

For small places, such a complex dynamic system is actually not recommended, but the country is large and the population is large. There are more than one or two large cities with a population of millions. When management pressure increases, we have to consider the issue of reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Judging from the current situation, "smart cities" and "virtual power plants" are highly compatible with electrification, IT Internet, and cashless payment society. Once realized, they will be of great significance.

(End of this chapter)