Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 62, November 2013, Pages 1533-1543
Energy Policy

Assessment of China's renewable energy contribution during the 12th Five Year Plan

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.07.110Get rights and content

Highlights

  • China's renewable energy contribution during the 12th Five Year Plan was assessed.

  • Non-fossil fuel targets in primary energy for 2015 and 2020 could be easily achieved.

  • Grid bottlenecks severely decrease the share of RES-E in electricity generation through the 12th Five Year Period.

  • Improved technical performance of renewable technologies and sectoral energy efficiency are extremely important for achieving higher RES-E share.

  • Several policy suggestions were drawn.

Abstract

In recent years, China has been ambitious in investing and developing renewable energy technologies, aiming to enhance its energy security, mitigate its energy-related CO2 emissions and develop renewable energy industry. The 12th Five Year Plan (2011–2015) has set clear targets on installed capacities of different renewable energy technologies. This study aimed to assess the possible contribution of 12th Five Year Plan for China's future energy system and identify factors that might influence its impacts. First, current status of renewable energy development in China has been reviewed. Then several energy scenarios have been developed in an hourly simulation using an energy system analysis tool EnergyPLAN. It was identified that existing grid bottleneck would greatly reduce the potential contribution of renewable installations in terms of share of renewable electricity generation, share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy and system CO2 emissions. In contrast, improving technical performance of renewable energy technologies and sectoral energy efficiency plays an important role in increasing the share of renewables and promoting China’s energy system transition. Finally, some policy suggestions were drawn to facilitate a better implementation of the renewable energy plan.

Introduction

In the past decade, China has witnessed double digit growth of gross domestic product (GDP), accompanied by accelerated industrial and urban development. This has led to unprecedented demand for primary energy, resulting in an increase of the total primary energy consumption from 5971 Mtce in 2000 to 14,837 Mtce in 2010. China surpassed the U.S. as the largest energy-related CO2 emitter in 2007. The IEA (International Energy Agency, 2011) estimated that China will contribute 50% of the growth in global CO2 emissions from now until 2035. Another recent report from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency predicted that China's per capita CO2 emissions may overtake those of the U.S. as early as 2017. These projections have caused great concerns for the world's efforts to keep global warming below 2 °C. As China is confronted with increasing pressures in terms of sustainable economic development, environmental health, energy security and greenhouse gas mitigation, its government's policy response to climate change has shifted markedly.

Until the 10th Five Year Plan (FYP) during 2001–2005, China's energy efficiency targets were fairly small or non-existent. Renewable energy policies were minimal and there was little mention of controlling CO2 emissions in Chinese government documents. By contrast, in the 11th FYP (2006–2010), energy efficiency, renewable energy and pollution control targets featured prominently. The 11th FYP calls for an ambitious target of 20% decrease in national energy intensity and a 10% share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy supply by 2010 compared to 2005. In 2009, the State Council further announced a target of reducing the carbon intensity of its GDP by 40–45% by 2020 compared to the 2005 level. In 12th FYP (2011–2015), China is targeting a 16% reduction in energy intensity, a 17% reduction in CO2 emission and an 11.4% of non-fossil share in primary energy by 2015 compared to 2010. As nuclear has given rise to increasing security worries and opposition after Japan's Fukushima accident, China’s previously ambitious nuclear development plan has been cooled. Instead, the 12th FYP puts more emphasis on renewable energy technologies in the near future.

Renewable energy has become such a hot topic in China that there are an exponentially rising number of related studies, including reviewing the resource potentials and situation of renewable energy development (Li et al., 1997, Li et al., 2005, Wang and Chen, 2010), studying renewable energy challenges and policies (Cherni and Kentish, 2007, Zhang et al., 2009, Schuman and Lin, 2012), conducting renewable case studies in a region or province (Hong et al., 2013, Wu and Xu, 2013), and analyzing the interactions between renewable energy development and environment (Panwar et al., 2011, Liu et al., 2011). As a lot of studies focused on certain technology and/or aspect of renewable energy development in China, few of them (Zhang et al., 2010) have investigated possible contributions of renewable energy to China's future sustainable energy system, not to mention assessing the impacts and challenges of the latest ambitious renewable targets set by the 12th FYP on China's future energy system from a comprehensive and systematic point of view. For example, what are possible share of renewable energy and non-fossil fuels in China's future energy system? How energy efficiency measures could influence the contribution of renewable energy deployment for the whole energy system? What are possible challenges caused by interactions between renewable energy technologies and conventional generation technologies in the energy system?

Therefore, this article aimed to identify opportunities and challenges for renewable energy development in China, assessed their impacts on achievement of the 12th FYP, and shed light on additional policy adjustments for a better implementation of the renewable energy plan. First, current status of renewable energy development was reviewed in terms of installed capacity, electricity generation, technical and economic performance and geographical distribution in Section 2. Second, the evolvement of renewable energy targets in different renewable energy plans were summarized and compared to the actual values in Section 3. Then, in Section 4, five pathways based on the targets of installed renewable energy capacities, technical performances of different renewable energy technologies, grid connection conditions and sectoral energy use were proposed and modeled using the energy analysis tool EnergyPLAN. Fourth, the impacts of the 12th FYP under different scenarios were assessed and compared on the basis of the share of renewable energy sources for electricity (RES-E), non-fossil fuels share of primary energy and system CO2 emissions in Section 5. Finally, policy recommendations were proposed in the conclusion.

Section snippets

Installed capacity and power generation

China has been the world's fastest growing market for renewable energy in recent years. Its newly increased installed renewable energy capacity was 133 GW in 2011, with the top five-year growth rate of 92% since 2006 (The PEW Charitable Trusts, 2012). It is also the world's number one in terms of installed capacities of hydropower, wind energy and solar water heat. Fig. 1 shows installed capacities of RES-E in China from 1990 to 2011. It is clear that small hydro has been developed steadily

12th FYP for renewable energy development

The motivations for promoting the development of renewable energy in China are similar to those of other countries: ensuring security of energy supply, alleviating climate change, and promote the renewable energy industry. In August 2007, the NDRC established the Medium and Long-Term Plan for Renewable Energy Development (2010, 2020). It is the first national plan for renewable energy development in China, which has set both overall targets for renewable energy shares and specific targets for

Scope and data source

The EnergyPLAN model was chosen for this study for the reason that it is a computer model for hour-by-hour simulations, which is very important for studying the fluctuating nature of RES-E. Previous studies using EnergyPLAN include analyses of large-scale integration of renewable energy (Lund, 2003, Lund, 2005, Lund and Münster, 2003, Lund and Münster, 2006, Le and Bhattacharyya, 2011), management of CHP and renewable energy (Lund and Clark, 2002, Lund and Münster, 2003), optimal combinations

Contribution of renewable energy during the 12th five year period

After establishing the aforementioned scenarios, we were able to assess the possible effects of the 12th FYP for renewable energy on China's energy system transition. Fig. 7 shows the share of renewable electricity generation (excluding hydropower) in the total electricity generation. Under the reference scenario, the share of RES-E (excluding hydropower) would increase from current 1.2% to 5.5% by 2015 and further to 9.9% by 2020. Compared to the reference scenario, improved technical

Conclusion

Energy security, environmental degradation and global climate change are emergent issues stunting China's sustainable growth in future. Large-scale development of clean and renewable energy technologies is one of the most important strategies the Chinese government has adopted to cope with these challenges. The recently issued 12th FYP for renewable energy development has set ambitious targets on installed capacities of different renewable energy technologies. However, policy-makers lack

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express great appreciation to Dr. Ryan Wiser, the staff scientist and deputy group leader in the Electricity Markets and Policy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, for his valuable and insightful suggestions.

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