Decar­boniz­ing China's Power Sec­tor: Poten­tial, Prospects, and Policy

China's power sec­tor accounts for 25% of the world coal consumption–fully about 13% of total global car­bon emis­sions from fos­sil fuel. Decar­boniz­ing China's power sec­tor will shape how the coun­try and–to a large extent–the world uses energy and addresses pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change. I will first intro­duce my work on provin­cial level resources assess­ment, using GIS model and capac­ity fac­tor sim­u­la­tion to explore where, when and how much wind and solar resources are avail­able. With the these assess­ments as key inputs, I have worked with the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Energy Lab­o­ra­tory (RAEL) to develop an inte­grated plan­ning model of the Chi­nese power sec­tor, the SWITCH-China model, to ana­lyze the fea­si­bil­ity, costs and ben­e­fits of China's clean power tran­si­tion under three key pol­icy sce­nar­ios: Ref­er­ence Sce­nario, Low Cost Renew­able Sce­nario, and Car­bon Cap Sce­nario. I will present the key find­ings from the mod­el­ing efforts and dis­cuss the pol­icy impli­ca­tions of China's clean power tran­si­tion. China's power sec­tor is in the midst of fast devel­op­ment, and today's invest­ment deci­sions will have a large impact on the country's abil­ity to achieve its envi­ron­men­tal and car­bon mit­i­ga­tion goals. Con­certed actions are needed to enable such a tran­si­tion, includ­ing intro­duc­ing a mean­ing­ful car­bon price, coor­di­nat­ing the invest­ment deci­sions, and build­ing the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture for mov­ing energy around.

Speaker: Gang He, UC Berkeley