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China's Industrial Energy Revolution: Renewable targets just became even more demanding (Part 1)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Hao Tan
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See the link to Part 2 of China's Industrial Energy Revolution

China is undergoing the most astonishing energy transformation underpinning the industrial revolution that is making it the workshop of the world. It is building its ‘black’ energy system at a prodigious rate - building the equivalent of a 1-GW thermal power station every 10 days, and burning vast amounts of coal in doing so. But at the same time it is building a ‘green’ energy system based on non-fossil sources (renewables and nuclear) faster than any other country on earth. China's green revolution is reflected in its targets for building renewable energy systems, which are being expanded as fast as is humanly and technically possible - in the name of energy security and nation-building infrastructure as much as for decarbonizing the economy. Which wins in this close race between black and green development is a matter of the highest importance, for China and for the world.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 52 , December 2012 , e2
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2012

References

Notes

1 According to the State Grid Corporation of China's ‘Green Development White Paper’ in 2010, the annual utilization hours for hydropower, wind, nuclear and solar in China are 3500 hours, 2000 hours, 7500 hours and 1400 hours respectively. The annual utilization hours for thermal power stations are given as 5300 hours. Thus a 1 GW source of hydropower generates 3500 GWh in one year; a 1 GW source of wind power generates 2000 GWh; a 1 GW thermal power station generates 5300 GWh; a 1 GW nuclear power station generates 7500 GWh; and a solar PV source generates 1400 GWh in one year. If 1 tce contains 29.3 GJ, then 1 billion tce (1 gtce) contains 29.3 EJ, or 8.4 trillion kWh (8400 TWh). Therefore, the capacity of non-fossil fuel electricity in 2020 will produce 2130 TWh of electricity in one year, or 253.5 million tce of electricity.

2 See ERI, 2009. China's Low Carbon Development Pathways by 2050: Scenario Analysis of Energy Demand and Carbon Emissions. NDRC Energy Research Institute Research Team. Science Press, Beijing (in Chinese)

3 Following Liu, T. et al. (2011) ‘Development forecast of renewable energy in China and its influence on the GHG control strategy of the country’. Renewable Energy, 26: 1284-1292, we use in this calculation the emission factors of 1017 g CO2/kWh for coal-fired power plants in China. Again, we utilize the annual utilization hours as indicated in the State Grid Corporation of China's ‘Green Development White Paper’ in 2010, i.e. 5300 hours per year for thermal power to translate the electricity capacity to electricity generation.

4 This is supported by Liu et al. (2011) ‘Development forecast of renewable energy in China and its influence on the GHG control strategy of the country’. Renewable Energy, 26: 1284-1292, who estimate that the emission factors of hydro, wind, solar and biomass-based electricity are 17, 36, 57, and 46 g CO2 / kWh compared with 1017 g CO2 / kWh by coal-fired power plants.

5 See the Carbon Mitigation Initiative website, and the presentation on Stabilization wedges here.

6 See the webpage of the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center. For the estimate of the cumulative carbon emissions over the 250 years 1750-200, see Allen et al (2009).