Empirical Research On The Supply And Demand Pattern Of Electricity Trade Along The 'The Belt And Road' Region—Based On The Social Network Analysis

With the continuous acceleration of the process of globalization and strengthening of regional trade activities,the energy Internet has become an important issue.The interconnection of large power grids will be the main trend of the development of the future world electricity trade.Conforming to the trend of the times,China‘s "the Belt and Road" strategy aims to promote regional economic cooperation among the countries and to facilitate trade and economic exchanges.As an important part of the "the Belt and Road" strategy,promoting the grid interconnection among the countries is essential to the smooth progress and effective implementation of the strategy.This paper applies social network analysis method to conduct empirical test on the supply and demand pattern of the electricity trade among the countries along the "the Belt and Road" region.And the result presented that the frequency and intensity of electric power trade between countries along "the Belt and Road" has developed rapidly in the past 30 years;the electricity trade within "the Belt and Road" is not typically scale-free,but has aggregation and heterogeneity;electricity sub-network within the region shows a characteristic of center-edge.The conclusion shows that electricity trade in Eastern Europe and Northeastern Asia has become saturated,while the mismatch of electricity supply and demand in Southeast Asia is rather serious.Hence,the demand for electricity in Southeast Asia is increasing and there is a large amount of demand for power supplies investment.Moreover,there is a lack of a core node with regard to electricity trade connecting Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia.As China's power companies continue to go out,China hopes to make up for this gap.