可再生能源发展：中国距离实现碳中和还有多远？.pdf

ADBI Working Paper Series RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT:HOW CLOSE IS THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINA TO ACHIEVING CARBON NEUTRALITY?Yao Lixia No.1438 March 2024 Asian Development Bank Institute The Working Paper series is a continuation of the formerly named Discussion Paper series;the numbering of the papers continued without interruption or change.ADBIs working papers reflect initial ideas on a topic and are posted online for discussion.Some working papers may develop into other forms of publication.Suggested citation:Lixia,Y.2024.Renewable Energy Development:How Close is the Peoples Republic of China to Achieving Carbon Neutrality?ADBI Working Paper 1438.Tokyo:Asian Development Bank Institute.Available:https:/doi.org/10.56506/HXPU5515 Please contact the authors for information about this paper.Email:esiyaolnus.edu.sg Yao Lixia is a senior research fellow,Energy Security Division,Energy Studies Institute,National University of Singapore.The views expressed in this paper are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of ADBI,ADB,its Board of Directors,or the governments they represent.ADBI does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequences of their use.Terminology used may not necessarily be consistent with ADB official terms.Discussion papers are subject to formal revision and correction before they are finalized and considered published.The author gratefully acknowledges the contribution of Phan Dam Quan,a former student of the National University of Singapore,concerning the literature review for this study.Asian Development Bank Institute Kasumigaseki Building,8th Floor 3-2-5 Kasumigaseki,Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-6008,Japan Tel:[phone] Fax:[phone] URL:www.adbi.org E-mail:infoadbi.org 2024 Asian Development Bank Institute ADBI Working Paper 1438 Y.Lixia Abstract Goals to mitigate climate change are to be achieved through government strategies and policies,as well as the availability of low-carbon technologies,and are subject to the underlying institutional,political,economic,and other factors that promote or constrain progress and the path taken.A large CO2 emitter,the Peoples Republic of China(PRC),has set the goals of carbon dioxide emissions peaking by 2030 and achieving greenhouse gas neutrality by 2060.This study reviews the PRCs efforts to phase out fossil fuels and analyzes the factors that have an impact on the PRCs renewable energy development and its path towards carbon neutrality.Four factors are found to be critical in the decarbonization of the PRC:the costs of retrofitting existing coal-fired power plants and upgrading the power grid to accommodate renewable energy;institutional factors;technology factors;and market-based schemes.Given these factors and the PRCs enormous coal-dependent infrastructure,transitioning away from fossil fuels will be challenging.Another big challenge is the intermittence of renewable energy sources.Hence,the growing penetration of renewable energy in the PRCs electricity mix requires effective policy tools and appropriately designed market signals.To put it simply,the PRC has the potential to develop renewable resources on a large scale,yet it still has a long way to go to achieve carbon neutrality.Keywords:Peoples Republic of China,carbon neutrality,fossil fuel phase-out JEL Classification:P28 ADBI Working Paper 1438 Y.Lixia Contents 1.INTRODUCTION.1 2.THE PRCS RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCE AND CARBON REDUCTION TARGETS.2 3.FOSSIL FUEL PHASE OUT.4 4.CRITICAL FACTORS IN ACCELERATING RENEWABLE ENERGY ADOPTION.5 4.1 Cost.5 4.2 Potential Institutional Factors.6 4.3 Technology.8 4.4 Supportive Schemes.10 5.GOVERNMENTS EFFORTS TO ADDRESS CHALLENGES IN RENEWABLE ENERGY ADOPTION.11 6.CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS.12 REFERENCES.14 ADBI Working Paper 1438 Y.Lixia 1 1.INTRODUCTION In December 2020,President Xi announced to the United Nations that the PRCs carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP would decline by 65%from 2005 levels,and the share of nonfossil fuels in the energy mix would rise to 25%(Xinhua Net 2020).This followed an earlier pledge by the President to the United Nations General Assembly on 22 September 2020 that emissions would peak before 2030 and that the country would strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060(Farand and Darby 2020).Given the ambition of the PRC government,this study aims to explore what factors are critical to energy transition in the PRC and what challenges should be tackled in the process of energy transition to achieve carbon neutrality.Several measures can help accelerate energy transition,such as developing renewable energy,increasing energy efficiency,and prioritizing environmental protection.Since 2020 when President Xi announced that the PRC would strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060,an increasing number of scholars have been conducting research on the PRCs climate mitigation and energy transition issues.Many of them are quantitative studies using modeling.Some reviewed the PRCs financial development on carbon emissions,analyzing the pathways,and suggested that the PRC should be focused in particular on the promotion of green finance(Zhou and Zhang 2024).Some project mitigations of carbon neutrality in the PRC(Li et al.2022a);others focus on the projection of carbon neutrality of a specific region in the PRC,e.g.,BeijingTianjinHebei Region,finding that under the constraint of the carbon neutrality target,this region should formulate more stringent emission reduction measures to ensure that the overall carbon emission will reach its peak in 2030.This indicates that the final allocation scheme will greatly encourage carbon emission reduction in Hebei Province(Zhang et al.2023a).Zhang et al.(2023b)examine specific policies,such as the Carbon Trading Pilot Policy and its impact on the achievement of the carbon neutrality target.Besides studies using quantitative methods,a few qualitative studies look into the PRCs carbon neutrality issue from a policy or legislative perspective.Gao et al.(2023)conduct an evolutionary analysis of the issuance and implementation of the PRCs carbon neutrality policies,finding that the PRCs carbon neutrality policies and initiatives grew gradually and in an orderly manner in the preliminary and decentralized exploration stage from 2006 until 2013,and continued to grow steadily from 2014 to 2019.The PRCs carbon neutrality policies started to grow explosively from 2020.Since then,there has been a series of top-down design policies and supportive policies in various industries and sectors.Shi and He(2023)look into the PRCs current legal system in achieving carbon neutrality goals and discuss the improvement of the legal system.It is suggested that a unified legislation system among central,local governments should be established to achieve carbon neutrality.Little research is focused on a comprehensive discussion about the roles and challenges of renewable energy development in achieving carbon neutrality in the PRC.This paper is focused on renewable energy because it is crucial for achieving carbon neutrality.Having said that,this paper intensively reviews the PRCs renewable energy development and overall current situation in phasing out the use of fossil fuels in the power sector.After that,this paper analyzes the critical factors that may have an impact on the phasing out of fossil fuels in the PRC.These factors include cost,institutions,technology,and market-based schemes.Challenges are discussed before policy implications and suggestions are provided at the end of the paper.ADBI Working Paper 1438 Y.Lixia 2 2.THE PRCS RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCE AND CARBON REDUCTION TARGETS There is vast potential in renewable energy resources in the PRC.It has the highest hydropower potential capacity in the world.In particular,the hydropower capacity that can be technologically harnessed is 542 GW,while the capacity that can be harnessed for economic benefits is 402 GW(Huang and Yan 2009).The potential hydropower capacity is unevenly distributed in the PRCs territories as 78%of them are concentrated in the southwest,near the Tibetan plateau(Huang and Yan 2009).The PRC has considerable potential in utilizing solar energy.Many provinces,such as Tibet,Xinjiang,Qinghai,Gansu,Ningxia,and Inner Mongolia,have desert landscapes,high radiation,and many hours of sunshine,making them suitable for the installation of solar panels.It is estimated that if 1%of the PRCs desert area were covered by solar photovoltaic systems with an annual energy generation of 120 kWh/m2,the PRC would generate at least 1,296 TWh from solar energy(Liu et al.2011),almost four times the PRCs total yearly solar power generation.The PRCs solar energy potential is unevenly distributed as those places with the highest solar potential are concentrated in the northern and western areas of the country.As for wind power,the PRC has a technically exploitable onshore wind energy of 2,548 GW for places that are 10 m above ground level(Liu et al.2011).Most of the PRCs potential onshore wind resources are concentrated in the north and northeast region,especially in Inner Mongolia.As regards offshore wind,the PRC has a potential 400500 GW of offshore wind energy capacity that is concentrated outside the southern and southeastern coastline(Zhang et al.2017).The PRC is also rich in biomass resources,which are mainly extracted from biogas that can be generated from industry wastewater,livestock manure straw,firewood,forest wastes,municipal wastes,and energy crops(Liu et al.2011).According to the BP Statistical Review 2022,about 35%of the total electricity generation was from nonfossil fuels in the PRC in 2021.The annual growth rate of installed solar capacity and wind capacity in the PRC was about 58.3%and 21.6%,respectively,from 2011 to 2021.The share of the PRCs energy consumption from renewable resources is expected to continue to increase as the current installed electric capacity from renewable resources in the PRC is becoming more significant.In the meantime,however,the PRC has been the worlds largest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions since 2005.As of 2021,the PRC accounted for 30.9%of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions(BP Statistical Review 2022).The PRCs carbon dioxide emissions from energy have risen threefold since 2000.However,the trend has been quite erratic,reacting to changes in economic policy.The growth of emissions accelerated twice in response to the economic stimuli following the Asian and Global financial crises,respectively(Figure 2.1).Since 2013,there has been a slower rising trend in CO2 emissions corresponding to the“new normal”economic situation.1 The slowing down of the PRCs increase in CO2 emissions since 2013 is also due to the successful implementations of emissions control policies in the 13th Five-Year-Plan.Nevertheless,the PRC now accounts for about 30%of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions from energy.2 1 “New normal”is a concept used by the PRC government and economists to describe the fact that annual GDP growth has slowed from the double-digit levels of many years when the economy was booming.2 BP,BP Statistical Review 2022.ADBI Working Paper 1438 Y.Lixia 3 Figure 1:PRC Carbon Dioxide Emissions from 2000 to 2021 (Million Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide)a a BP,BP Statistical Review 2022.In terms of CO2 emissions by fuel type,most of the PRCs CO2 emissions are emitted from the use of fossil fuels,including coal,crude oil,and gas.Figure 2.2 shows the breakdown of the PRCs CO2 emissions by fuel type from 2000 to 2020.In general,most CO2 is emitted from the use of coal,which accounts for 70%80%of all CO2 emissions.The use of oil accounts for the second-highest amount of CO2 emissions at around 15%of the total,while emissions caused by using cement and gas account for the remainder.From 2000 to 2010,the percentage of emissions from using coal steadily increased from around 70%to 76.4%of all emissions in the PRC.However,from 2011 to 2020,this figure dropped from 76.4%to 69.5%,which suggests that the PRCs decarbonization policies have proven their effectiveness.Figure 2:Shares of the PRCs CO2 Emissions by Fuel Type(20002020)(%)Source:Our World in Data(2022).ADBI Working Paper 1438 Y.Lixia 4 On top of this,the PRC government is continuing with its targets in reducing energy intensity.It plans to reduce its industrial energy consumption per unit of GDP by 13.5%during the period 20212025 by introducing new technologies and financial services.Further,as industries account for about 65%of the total national energy consumption,it is believed that improved efficiency would be a critical measure in reducing energy intensity.By improving the energy efficiency of industrial enterprises,about 37%of the countrys planned carbon emission reductions could be achieved from now until the middle of this century(Reuters 2022).Given the PRCs rich renewable energy resources and its target of carbon reduction,the country can build on its current renewable energy momentum,as a power sector dominated by renewables can accelerate the PRCs renewable energy transition.In other words,the accelerated development of the PRCs renewable sector is a concrete step in the countrys efforts to make carbon emissions peak by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.3.FOSSIL FUEL PHASE OUT The PRC has a detailed plan to reduce fossil fuels in its energy mix.Different PRC master plans for national energy development have outlined that the share of fossil fuel is expected to drop to below 20%by 2060(Regan 2021).Furthermore,the PRCs 14th Five-Year Plan on energy aims to phase out 30 GW of inefficient coal-fired capacity,which accounts for about 3%of the current installed power capacity(Lin 2022).To phase out inefficient capacity,the PRC is expected to shut down a significant proportion of its coal power plants from now until 2030.Moreover,the PRC is expected to continue to improve the efficiency of its coal-fired units and reduce the average amount of coal used for each kilowatt-hour of electricity to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of its coal-fired power plants(Xue and Ng 2021).However,the demand for Chinese goods has surged since the world started to reopen after COVID-19.Chinese factories hence need a lot more electricity,more than half of which is produced by coal.In the meantime,coal production has been slowed down as the PRC government attempts to make the country carbon neutral by 2060.Restrictions on the import of Australian coal made the shortage of coal supply even worse.The balance between supply and demand pushed up coal prices,while electricity prices were strictly controlled by the government.As a result,coal-fired power plants drastically reduced their output as they were unwilling to operate at a loss(Hoskins 2021).These power shortages have caused many incidents of blackouts across the PRC,with some power grid operators having to ration electricity