具有中国特色的绿证：绿证将帮助中国清洁能源转型么？.pdf

CHINA Anders Hove,Senior Research Fellow,OIES&Gary Sipeng Xie,Policy Advisor and British Columbia Advisor to Canadas Minister of Natural Resources Green certificates with Chinese characteristics:Will green certificates help Chinas clean energy transition?July 2023 December 2021 OIES PAPER:CE9 OIES PAPER:ET06 The contents of this paper are the authors sole responsibility.They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its Members.i The contents of this paper are the authors sole responsibility.They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its members.Copyright 2023 Oxford Institute for Energy Studies(Registered Charity,No.286084)This publication may be reproduced in part for educational or non-profit purposes without special permission from the copyright holder,provided acknowledgment of the source is made.No use of this publication may be made for resale or for any other commercial purpose whatsoever without prior permission in writing from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.ISBN 978-1-78467-213-3 The contents of this paper are the authors sole responsibility.They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its Members.ii Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful advice and comments provided by Philip Andrews-Speed of OIES,Sharon Feng of Azure International,Michal Meidan of OIES,Yan Qin of Refinitiv,Ye Ruiqi of Greenpeace East Asia,Zhang Sufang of North China Electric Power University and Xu Zheng of BP.Any errors are the responsibility of the authors.This paper was first published on 1 August 2023.It was updated and re-posted on 8 August 2023 to reflect a new policy release on 3 August 2023.The contents of this paper are the authors sole responsibility.They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its Members.iii Executive summary Green power trading is a potential market-oriented approach to promoting a clean energy transition in China and shifting away from the subsidy-and planning-based approach used so far.In practice,however,Chinas leading instrument for this policy,the green certificate,has faced serious obstacles to acceptance.While new policies and existing trends will help resolve some of these obstacles,more must be overcome before Chinas green certificates can play a significant role in accelerating the countrys adoption of clean,renewable energy.China is a leader in renewable energy,including wind,solar,and hydro.Wind and solar,known in China as new energy,have been supported by subsidized feed-in tariffs,minimum purchase amounts,quotas,and auctions under the grid parity programme,as well as additional programmes for distributed solar.Most wind and solar capacity is owned by state-owned power companies,and the majority of its output is sold to the grid without any direct participation by the private sector,though this is changing gradually.For years,China has also had various policies to promote the private purchase of renewable electricity,most notably the green certificate programme.A China green certificate represents the financial purchase of 1,000 kWh of wind or solar electricity;the certificates are issued by a regulatory entity to qualified wind and solar generators,which can then sell the certificates to private or state-owned purchasers,which buy certificates on a voluntary basis.The initial phase of this programme produced few results,but an uptick in market interest since 2021 and recent policy documents suggest green power purchasing is likely to play a larger role in Chinas power system.Just as Chinas internal electricity market and system have tended to diverge from international examples,Chinas green certificate system is unique,and the compatibility of Chinas green certificates with international practices is unclear.Originally designed to help phase out government subsidies for wind and solar,green certificates are undergoing a transition towards supporting unsubsidized wind and solar.However,Chinas green certificate market faces significant near-term obstacles around transparency,regulation,and its rolewhether in meeting the low-carbon goal of private companies or in contributing to the provincial targets and quotas on energy consumption and renewable integration.The contents of this paper are the authors sole responsibility.They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its Members.iv Contents Acknowledgements.ii Executive summary.iii Contents.iv Figures and Tables.iv Introduction.1 Background on Chinas renewable energy policies:Prior policy support and subsidies for wind and solar.2 Chinas green certificate policies and market:History and present situation.6 Early history of the market.6 Electric power market reforms and direct green power trading.9 Potential resolution of feed-in tariff subsidy deficit.9 Problems and challenges for Chinas green certificate market.10 Low trading volumes.10 Lack of additionality.11 Double-counting.12 Lack of transparency.13 Competition with International Renewable Energy Certificates.14 International recognition.15 Evolution of green certificates outside of China and potential impact on Chinas market.17 Conclusions:Various barriers remain before green certificates can play a larger role.18 Figures and Tables Figure 1:China renewable energy surcharge levels over time,20062023,RMB/kWh.3 Table 1:Cumulative green certificates sold as a percentage of total green certificates issued.11 The contents of this paper are the authors sole responsibility.They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its Members.1 Introduction For almost a decade,China has sought to introduce more market elements into its electricity sector,both to improve the sectors economic efficiency by providing more market price signals for investment and operation and to encourage participation of new players,on both the generation side and the consumption side.For renewable energy,where China has sought to reduce dependence on government subsidies,market instruments such as green certificates offer the potential to involve public and private companies in the countrys clean energy deployment while lessening its subsidy burden.In 2017,when China launched its green certificate programme,the country was already the worlds leading installer of renewable energy in terms of wind,solar,and hydro.The initial green certificate policy had several stated goals,but the leading purpose was to raise revenues for renewables from the private sectorparticularly from private companies such as multinational consumer brandsand reduce the need for subsidies and other policy support.In the years since,subsidies have been withdrawn for new projects and limited for older projects,but green certificates have still struggled to take off.More recently,trading volumes have risen,and in mid-2023 a major new reform introduced that could expand the role of green certificates.The purpose of this paper is to take stock of Chinas green certificate programme and answer the following important questions:(1)To what extent have green certificates helped accelerate the deployment of renewables,and will this change in the near term?(2)Why are green certificate purchase volumes increasing,and what effect will this have?(3)How attractive are Chinas green certificates to private companiesparticularly international companiesand are Chinas green certificates recognized internationally?The paper is structured in four sections.The first section gives background information on Chinas renewable energy policies,especially as they relate to government subsidies,given that green certificates began as a strategy for phasing out and replacing such subsidies.The second section provides an explanation of the history and present situation of Chinas green certificate policies and market.The third section discusses problems and challenges faced by the green certificate market.The fourth section evaluates the extent to which Chinas green certificates are likely to be recognized by international companies active in purchasing renewable energy and related instruments.The evolution of renewable energy policy in China and the gradual introduction of market-oriented elements into wholesale electricity trading point to a brighter future for green certificate trading.The reasons are:While the government still seeks to use green certificates as a tool to raise revenue for renewable energyby encouraging businesses and individuals to purchase certificates,with payment offsetting government subsidy obligationsrecent government policies to top up the subsidy fund mean there is less urgency to use such revenues to substitute for the feed-in tariff deficit owed by the government.This lessens the markets perception that green certificates lack additionality,which was a major obstacle in the early years of the programme.The trend towards a resolution of the renewable subsidy deficit makes addressing this deficit a less salient policy goal for green certificates,but if green certificates become successful,this could lead to further moves to shift older wind and solar off of feed-in tariffs.Policymakers therefore have an incentive to increase the attractiveness of green certificates in the hope of further reducing the government subsidy burden,even after the feed-in tariff deficit is resolved.An increasing supply of wind and solar output with unsubsidized electricity production is available for marketing with green certificates,and these lower-cost green certificates issued by unsubsidized wind and solar projects are more economically attractive for purchase by the private sector relative to green certificates from subsidized projects in the past.However,despite these positive developments,there remain many obstacles to the development of a vibrant and active green certificate market that would contribute to Chinas low-carbon policy goals.The future evolution of Chinas green certificate market is highly uncertain,as is the extent to which green certificates will be recognized internationally.Outside of China,there is an increasing shift from policies that simply add more renewable capacity to ensuring renewables are consumed where and when they are needed.This has led to a push in Europe and North America towards time-matched renewable markets,which could mean Chinas green certificates will be out of step with changes in other regions.The contents of this paper are the authors sole responsibility.They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its Members.2 Background on Chinas renewable energy policies:Prior policy support and subsidies for wind and solar The background of Chinas green certificate market,which properly began in 2017 as an additional support policy for wind and solar energy,is linked to the history of renewable energy subsidies in China that date back two decades,and particularly to the deficit in subsidy payments related to the design of the countrys feed-in tariff for wind and solar electricity generation.China began promoting wind and solar technologies as early as the 1990s,and the countrys domestic wind market reached gigawatt scale in the mid-2000s,in part due to the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol,which resulted in financial transfers for Chinese wind projects from Western countries seeking to comply with carbon emission targets.1 The real inflexion point for wind and solar capacity in China took place around 201011.In 2009,after several years of promoting wind power via subsidized capacity auctions,China introduced a subsidized feed-in tariff for wind energy,granting a fixed payment tariff for 20 years to new projects approved under the scheme.2 Subsidies for wind capacity auctions and subsequent feed-in tariffs were funded through the collection of a surcharge on electricity sales to most customers.A generous feed-in tariff was also introduced to cover solar photovoltaic(PV)in 2011.3 The introduction of these subsidized feed-in tariffs coincided with the take-off of the two technologies in China:wind power capacity rose from 12 GW in 2008 to 63 GW in 2011,and solar PV capacity rose from under 1 GW in 2010 to 3 GW in 2011 and to 16 GW in 2013.The Chinese feed-in tariff was modelled on the feed-in tariff in the German renewable energy law4 and suffered from some similar drawbacks.In particular,Chinas feed-in tariff was adjusted on an annual basis,and typically such adjustments lagged the industrys progress in reducing costs.This resulted in a boombust pattern of wind installationsand,starting in 2011,solar PV installationsthat ultimately led wind and solar capacity to grow far beyond government-set targets.Under Chinas Renewable Energy Law,grid companies were obligated to purchase all the electricity output of wind and solar generators,and all output qualified for subsidized feed-in tariff levels.However,grid companies had little incentive to dispatch wind and solar power over coal power,leading to high rates of curtailed wind and solar output:curtailment reached over 17 per cent at its peak for wind power in 2016,and 12 per cent for solar PV in 2015.5 Further,government feed-in tariff subsidy obligations dramatically exceeded renewable energy surcharge revenues,leading to an ongoing problem of renewable surcharge deficits,6 even though the central government steadily raised the surcharge,from RMB 0.001/kWh in 2006 to RMB 0.019/kWh in 2016(Figure 1).At RMB 0.019/kWh,the surcharge represented a 3.2 per cent premium on the average retail electricity price of RMB 0.611/kWh.7 After 2016 the government signalled that no further surcharge 1 Zhen-Yu Zhao et al.,The impact of the CDM(clean development mechanism)on the cost price of wind power electricity:A China study,Energy,69,18 April 2014,at http:/dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.10.050.2 国家发展改革委关于完善风力发电上网电价政策的通知,发改价格(2009)1906 号 NDRC notice on improving the feed-in tariff policy for wind power generation,NDRC Pricing(2009)No.1906,National Development and Reform Commission,20 July 2009,at 关于完善太阳能光伏发电上网电价政策的通知,发改价格20111594 号 Notice on improving the feed-in tariff policy for solar PV power generation,NDRC Pricing(2011)No.1594,National Development and Reform Commission,24 July 2011,at Li Junfeng et al.,A study on the pricing policy of wind power,China Renewable Energy Industry Association,Greenpeace International,Global Wind Energy Council,2012,at https:/ German feed-in tariff,Future Policy,accessed 31 May 2023 at www.futurepolicy.org/climate-stability/renewable-energies/the-german-feed-in-tariff.5 2019 Q1&2 wind power installations and production by province,China Energy Portal,26 July 2019,at https:/chinaenergyportal.org/en/2019-q2-wind-power-installations-and-production-by-province/;2015-2020 年中国弃风弃光率,Go