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Hu Runqing: Renewable Energy and Low Carbon City in China
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Published time: 2017-01-11
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Hu Runqing, Fellow, Energy Research Institute
National Development and Reform Commission, People’s Republic of China
Today it’s my honor to share with you here China's new energy and low-carbon city developments. First of all, let’s talk about China's existing energy developments and challenges. As a large country of population, China has achieved nearly 20 years of rapid development. Due to the limitation of resources, our energy consumption is dominated by fossil energy. At present, coal accounts for 65% of China's energy consumption. As energy consumption continues to increase, this is a very big challenge for China. Fossil energy-based energy consumption has brought great pollution to the environment. Currently, the world is now facing the challenge of tackling climate change, and China is also confronted with a very arduous task.
A low-carbon city is inextricably linked to renewable energy. A low-carbon city has two energy development paths. First of all, more green energy is provided through the development of renewable energy, while energy efficiency is also improved to reduce the total energy consumption. In this regard, cities are not only the main player of economic activity and energy consumption, but are also the main contributor of carbon emissions, so the city plays a very important role for the sustainable development of the society as a whole. In addition, cities are also an implementer of various policies and programs, so renewable energy and low-carbon city are in a mutually supportive relationship. The development of renewable energy can help promote the construction of low-carbon cities while the low-carbon city concept can lead to more renewable energy applications.
China began to implement the renewable energy law in 2006. The Chinese government has provided a strong support for renewable energy and created a huge renewable energy manufacturing industry over the past 10 years. As a result, the renewable energy production and utilization have risen steadily over the past decade. Currently, the renewable energy accounts for about 12% of the primary energy consumption and is expected to reach 60% by 2050. At the same time, China has proposed a very ambitious development goal that the non-fossil energy sources will make up 15% of the total energy consumption by 2020 and 20% by 2030. Furthermore, China has also committed to the world that our carbon dioxide emissions will reach the peak in 2030. There is great potential of the renewable energy market, and the hydropower, wind energy, solar energy, biomass energy and geothermal energy are developing rapidly. The annual installed capacity of wind energy reaches 15 GW. Since 2013, the installed capacity of solar energy has exceeded 10 GW, which creates a very good market space for renewable energy and also provides a strong support for the rapid market development.
Over the past 5 years, China's focus is more on renewable energy production, but in the next 5 years, China's thinking will change by focusing on both renewable energy production and renewable energy consumption in cities. At present, we have two demonstration city projects; one is the new energy city project launched by the National Energy Administration in 2012, which has been awarded to 81 cities to carry out the work of a new energy city. This project mainly focuses on the renewable energy consumption and application in cities. The other is the national low-carbon model city project started in 2010, which involves the demonstration of 36 cities from the 6 provinces across the country. This project concerns a wider range, which focuses on not only the energy system but also transportation and other aspects in respect of low-carbon cities. In the implementation process of these projects, the local governments have provided a very large support.
Take the city of Dunhuang in western China as an example: Dunhuang has very good solar and wind resources and might be more concerned about large-scale power stations in the past, but now it is vigorously carrying out 100% research on Renewable Energy Cities, under the promotion of the local government and the support of German and Chinese experts. At the energy demand side, they build large renewable energy base including 1GW national PC thermal power generation demonstration base, 2GW PV leading power generation base, 2GW wind power generation base, and develop distributed energy to meet 100% renewable energy demand. At the energy transfer side, they build export channel and develop local power distribution network, build renewable energy heating supply network for full supply with renewable energy for town, and build renewable energy transportation network and push the enlargement of charging pile network. At the energy consumption side, they start energy demand management in industry, architecture and transportation, transferring from general management to refinement management and using technology and management method to improve energy efficiency. They’ve set the long term goal of building 100% renewable power city, 100% renewable heating city, 100% renewable transportation city and 100% renewable tourist city.
The key to China's energy revolution lies in the development of renewable energy, and is mainly affected by the price of renewable energy. Therefore, we need to combine energy consumption revolution, energy supply revolution, energy technology revolution and energy system revolution and strengthen the international cooperation before the stable and sound development of renewable energy is truly achieved, so as to promote the construction and development of low-carbon cities.
A low-carbon city is inextricably linked to renewable energy. A low-carbon city has two energy development paths. First of all, more green energy is provided through the development of renewable energy, while energy efficiency is also improved to reduce the total energy consumption. In this regard, cities are not only the main player of economic activity and energy consumption, but are also the main contributor of carbon emissions, so the city plays a very important role for the sustainable development of the society as a whole. In addition, cities are also an implementer of various policies and programs, so renewable energy and low-carbon city are in a mutually supportive relationship. The development of renewable energy can help promote the construction of low-carbon cities while the low-carbon city concept can lead to more renewable energy applications.
China began to implement the renewable energy law in 2006. The Chinese government has provided a strong support for renewable energy and created a huge renewable energy manufacturing industry over the past 10 years. As a result, the renewable energy production and utilization have risen steadily over the past decade. Currently, the renewable energy accounts for about 12% of the primary energy consumption and is expected to reach 60% by 2050. At the same time, China has proposed a very ambitious development goal that the non-fossil energy sources will make up 15% of the total energy consumption by 2020 and 20% by 2030. Furthermore, China has also committed to the world that our carbon dioxide emissions will reach the peak in 2030. There is great potential of the renewable energy market, and the hydropower, wind energy, solar energy, biomass energy and geothermal energy are developing rapidly. The annual installed capacity of wind energy reaches 15 GW. Since 2013, the installed capacity of solar energy has exceeded 10 GW, which creates a very good market space for renewable energy and also provides a strong support for the rapid market development.
Over the past 5 years, China's focus is more on renewable energy production, but in the next 5 years, China's thinking will change by focusing on both renewable energy production and renewable energy consumption in cities. At present, we have two demonstration city projects; one is the new energy city project launched by the National Energy Administration in 2012, which has been awarded to 81 cities to carry out the work of a new energy city. This project mainly focuses on the renewable energy consumption and application in cities. The other is the national low-carbon model city project started in 2010, which involves the demonstration of 36 cities from the 6 provinces across the country. This project concerns a wider range, which focuses on not only the energy system but also transportation and other aspects in respect of low-carbon cities. In the implementation process of these projects, the local governments have provided a very large support.
Take the city of Dunhuang in western China as an example: Dunhuang has very good solar and wind resources and might be more concerned about large-scale power stations in the past, but now it is vigorously carrying out 100% research on Renewable Energy Cities, under the promotion of the local government and the support of German and Chinese experts. At the energy demand side, they build large renewable energy base including 1GW national PC thermal power generation demonstration base, 2GW PV leading power generation base, 2GW wind power generation base, and develop distributed energy to meet 100% renewable energy demand. At the energy transfer side, they build export channel and develop local power distribution network, build renewable energy heating supply network for full supply with renewable energy for town, and build renewable energy transportation network and push the enlargement of charging pile network. At the energy consumption side, they start energy demand management in industry, architecture and transportation, transferring from general management to refinement management and using technology and management method to improve energy efficiency. They’ve set the long term goal of building 100% renewable power city, 100% renewable heating city, 100% renewable transportation city and 100% renewable tourist city.
The key to China's energy revolution lies in the development of renewable energy, and is mainly affected by the price of renewable energy. Therefore, we need to combine energy consumption revolution, energy supply revolution, energy technology revolution and energy system revolution and strengthen the international cooperation before the stable and sound development of renewable energy is truly achieved, so as to promote the construction and development of low-carbon cities.
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