• Energy Research

With high carbon emission, the low-carbon transition of power sector will be critical for China to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. The power transition will have an impact on the economy and employment through the value chain. Quantifying the impact is important for China's future energy and welfare policies. This study adopts input‒output model to analyze the impact on economy and employment based on accelerated and slow power transition scenarios. The results show that the low-carbon power transition will have a negative impact on coal power and coal mining and washing sectors, while a positive impact on machine manufacturing and equipment sector. Low-carbon power transition will have a positive economic and employment effect to promote inclusive growth. By 2060, economic output will increase by about 8.50 trillion CNY, value-added by about 3.39 trillion CNY, and employment will increase by about 3.74 million. Although slower coal power transition can stabilize the economic and employment effect in the short and medium run, accelerating the power transition will produce more positive effect and lower job losses by coal power in the long run. By 2060, accelerating transition will boost output by 8.21%, value-added by 8.20% and jobs by 7.97%. Accordingly, the government should establish an all-round just low-carbon transition mechanism.

In 2009, the implementation of feed-in tariff (FIT) and attractive public subsidies for onshore wind farms aroused great investment enthusiasm and spurred remarkable development of wind power in China. Meanwhile, rapid learning-by-doing has significantly cut down the cost of wind turbines and the capital cost of wind farms as well. Therefore, it is the right time to examine the appropriateness of the existing FIT policy for wind power in China. In this paper, we employ the analytical framework for levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) to model the generation cost of wind power. Results show that the existing FIT policy is attractive to investors, but serious curtailment and turbine quality issues could make wind power unprofitable. Meanwhile, rapid substantial decreases in the cost of wind power have made it competitive to coal power in 2013, implying that it is possible and necessary to reform the FIT policy for new wind farms. In the future, energy policies for onshore wind power in China could be concentrated on reducing the integration cost, so as to reduce the overall system cost.

Abstract For decades, China has long been striving for localized auto industry. Taking the opportunity of industrial transformation, China not only aims to overtake the mass auto industry, but also to shift into fast lane in developing indigenous premium 1 new energy vehicles (NEV). Premium auto industry represents the peak of market & technical trends. To spur China’s premium NEV development, it is essential to evaluate the platform of enabling premium NEV development in China by studying German premium NEV activities in this market. This paper reviews China’s NEV market and German premium automakers via a hexagonal framework: policy, market, technologies, charging, electricity efficiencies comparison and a case study of premium NEV activity heat map in Beijing. German NEV automakers are less active based on disadvantages over policy-supported Chinese players. In order to encourage market oriented NEV industrial development, ‘policy and market integration’ is essential: subsidy policies should be in place to promote technical innovations, while market should be more inclusive for foreign players to enable healthy market competitions.

Abstract Coal is an irreplaceable part of the world energy structure and the condition will not be changed in the near future. Under the Belt and Road initiative, more and more Chinese energy enterprises are planning to invest in coal-fired power plant (CFPP) abroad. However, there are multiple potential risks in investing in CFPP overseas. So, assessing the risk level can help the investors avoid too risky countries and at the same time facilitate the government to take measures to reduce the potential risks to attract more investors. To reasonably assess overseas investment risk of CFPP in countries along the Belt and Road initiative, this paper establishes an evaluation criteria system from eight dimensions which consists of a total of 39 criteria. Then, these criteria weights are determined through a combined analytic network process-Entropy method. Furthermore, considering the psychological characteristics of decision-makers, a TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese for Interactive Multi-criteria Decision Making) approach is used to rank the overall risk level of CFPP investment for 23 nations. The findings indicate that the criterion of economic foundation owns the largest weight. Moreover, among these evaluated nations, Singapore have the lowest risk for China’s CFPP investment, followed by New Zealand and Thailand.

Abstract Emissions mitigation is a major challenge for China's sustainable development. We summarize China's successful experiences on energy efficiency in past 30 years as the contributions of Energy Usage Management and Integrated Resource Strategic Planning, which are essential for low-carbon economy. In an Economy–Energy–Electricity–Environment (E4) framework, the paper studies the low-carbon development of China and gives an outlook of China's economy growth, energy–electricity demand, renewable power generation and energy conservation and emissions mitigation until 2030. A business-as-usual scenario is projected as baseline for comparison while low carbon energy and electricity development path is studied. It is defined as low carbon energy/electricity when an economy body manages to realize its potential economic growth fueled by less energy/electricity consumption, which can be characterized by indexes of energy/electricity intensity and emissions per-unit of energy consumption (electricity generation). Results show that, with EUM, China, could save energy by 4.38 billion ton oil equivalences (toes) and reduce CO2 emission by 16.55 billion tons; with IRSP, China, could save energy by 1.5 Btoes and reduce CO2 emission by 5.7 Btons, during 2010–2030. To realize the massive potential, China has to reshape its economic structure and rely much on technology innovation in the future.

AbstractChina's coal‐fired power industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation. From a historical perspective, we conducted a comprehensive assessment of the coal power sector in China, to understand the cause of the transition and where its future lies. Through the interactions among landscape, regime and niches, China's coal‐fired power industry has developed cleaner and more efficient, which positively mitigated the local pollution. Yet the decarbonization in the power sector is unsatisfactory. Due to its dominating role and nature of high‐carbon emitting, the coal power sector has always been a big challenge during China's climate actions. Although the goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 demonstrates China's ambitions, expanding coal‐fired power generation capacity hinders climate change mitigation and low‐carbon transition. In this regard, we discuss the guidelines for the future high‐quality coal‐fired power development to provide recommendations for policy‐makers and industry stakeholders. China's coal power sector should commit to the vision of deep decarbonization by 2050.This article is categorized under: Energy and Climate > Economics and Policy Fossil Fuels > Climate and Environment Energy Policy and Planning > Climate and Environment

Abstract With the deepening of power market reform, distributed power generation is gaining momentum. This paper tests the distributed photovoltaic (DPV) economy under different business models by taking three provinces to stand for typical resource zones. The Internal return rate (IRR) is used to measure the economy, while the improved levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is used to model the generation cost. Three business modes, namely pure producer (all generation sold to the grid), prosumer (self-use and the rest sold to the grid), and peer-to-peer trade (P2P, all generation traded via the grid) are studied. Results show that peer-to-peer trade is more profitable and is a win-win solution to both DPV owner and electricity consumers. However, peer-to-peer trade is possible only when power grid’s role is properly defined in China’s power sector reform. Electricity trading mechanism should be improved to facilitate peer-to-peer trade.

In recent years, new energy sources have ushered in tremendous opportunities for development. The difficulties to finance new energy enterprises (NEEs) can be estimated through issuing corporate bonds. However, there are few scientific and reasonable methods to assess the credit risk of NEE bonds, which is not conducive to the healthy development of NEEs. Based on this, this paper analyzes the advantages and risks of NEEs issuing bonds and the main factors affecting the credit risk of NEE bonds, constructs a hybrid model for assessing the credit risk of NEE bonds based on factor analysis and logistic regress analysis techniques, and verifies the applicability and effectiveness of the model employing relevant data from 46 Chinese NEEs. The results show that the main factors affecting the credit risk of NEE bonds are internal factors involving the company’s profitability, solvency, operational ability, growth potential, asset structure and viability, and external factors including macroeconomic environment and energy policy support. Based on the empirical results and the exact situation of China’s NEE bonds, this article finally puts forward several targeted recommendations.