IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v38y2010i4p1872-1878.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

China's renewable energy policy: Commitments and challenges

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Feng
  • Yin, Haitao
  • Li, Shoude

Abstract

The passing of the Renewable Energy Law (REL) in 2005 demonstrated China's commitment to renewable energy development. In the 3 years after the REL, China's renewable electricity capacity grew rapidly. From 2006 to 2008, China's wind capacity installation more than doubled every year for 3 years in a row. However, three facts prevent us from being optimistic about China's renewable electricity future. First, considered as a share of total capacity, renewable electricity capacity is decreasing instead of increasing. This is due simply to the rapid growth of fossil fuel capacity. Second, a significant amount of renewable generation capacity is wasted because it is not connected to the electricity grid. Finally, renewable electricity plants are running at a low level of efficiency. Based on an in-depth analysis of China's existing renewable energy policy, we suggest that these challenges should be dealt with by introducing a market-based mandatory renewable portfolio requirement coupled with strong regulatory monitoring of grid enterprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Feng & Yin, Haitao & Li, Shoude, 2010. "China's renewable energy policy: Commitments and challenges," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1872-1878, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:4:p:1872-1878
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(09)00915-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yuan, Jia-Hai & Kang, Jian-Gang & Zhao, Chang-Hong & Hu, Zhao-Guang, 2008. "Energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from China at both aggregated and disaggregated levels," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 3077-3094, November.
    2. Shiu, Alice & Lam, Pun-Lee, 2004. "Electricity consumption and economic growth in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 47-54, January.
    3. Zhang, Chi & Shukla, P.R. & Victor, David G. & Heller, Thomas C. & Biswas, Debashish & Nag, Tirthankar, 2006. "Baselines for carbon emissions in the Indian and Chinese power sectors: Implications for international carbon trading," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(14), pages 1900-1917, September.
    4. Cherni, Judith A. & Kentish, Joanna, 2007. "Renewable energy policy and electricity market reforms in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 3616-3629, July.
    5. Auffhammer, Maximilian & Carson, Richard T., 2008. "Forecasting the path of China's CO2 emissions using province-level information," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 229-247, May.
    6. Menz, Fredric C. & Vachon, Stephan, 2006. "The effectiveness of different policy regimes for promoting wind power: Experiences from the states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(14), pages 1786-1796, September.
    7. Berry, Trent & Jaccard, Mark, 2001. "The renewable portfolio standard:: design considerations and an implementation survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 263-277, March.
    8. Wiser, Ryan & Namovicz, Christopher & Gielecki, Mark & Smith, Robert, 2007. "The Experience with Renewable Portfolio Standards in the United States," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 8-20, May.
    9. Ryan Wiser & Kevin Porter & Robert Grace, 2005. "Evaluating Experience with Renewables Portfolio Standards in the United States," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 237-263, April.
    10. Peidong, Zhang & Yanli, Yang & jin, Shi & Yonghong, Zheng & Lisheng, Wang & Xinrong, Li, 2009. "Opportunities and challenges for renewable energy policy in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 439-449, February.
    11. Ma, Chunbo & He, Lining, 2008. "From state monopoly to renewable portfolio: Restructuring China's electric utility," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1697-1711, May.
    12. Auffhammer, Maximilian & Carson, Richard T., 2007. "Forecasting the Path of China's CO2 Emissions Using Province Level Information," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt6d28j8rg, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    13. Crew, Michael A & Kleindorfer, Paul R, 2002. "Regulatory Economics: Twenty Years of Progress?," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 5-22, January.
    14. Yang, Ming, 2008. "China's energy efficiency target 2010," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 561-570, February.
    15. Kotchen, Matthew J. & Moore, Michael R., 2007. "Private provision of environmental public goods: Household participation in green-electricity programs," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-16, January.
    16. Zhao, Xiaoli & Ma, Chunbo & Hong, Dongyue, 2010. "Why did China's energy intensity increase during 1998-2006: Decomposition and policy analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1379-1388, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhao, Xiaoli & Yin, Haitao, 2011. "Industrial relocation and energy consumption: Evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2944-2956, May.
    2. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2010. "China's energy economy: A survey of the literature," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 105-132, June.
    3. You, Jing, 2011. "China's energy consumption and sustainable development: Comparative evidence from GDP and genuine savings," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 2984-2989, August.
    4. Duc Khuong Nguyen & Benoît Sévi & Bo Sjö & Gazi Salah Uddin, 2017. "The role of trade openness and investment in examining the energy-growth-pollution nexus: empirical evidence for China and India," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(40), pages 4083-4098, August.
    5. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Gloria Claudio-Quiroga & Luis A. Gil-Alana, 2019. "CO2 Emissions and GDP: Evidence from China," CESifo Working Paper Series 7881, CESifo.
    6. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2009. "Gradual reforms and the emergence of energy market in China: Evidence from tests for convergence of energy prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4834-4850, November.
    7. Zhao, Xiaoli & Li, Shujie & Zhang, Sufang & Yang, Rui & Liu, Suwei, 2016. "The effectiveness of China's wind power policy: An empirical analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 269-279.
    8. Yin, Haitao & Powers, Nicholas, 2010. "Do state renewable portfolio standards promote in-state renewable generation[glottal stop]," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 1140-1149, February.
    9. Jin Zhang & David C. Broadstock, 2016. "The Causality between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth for China in a Time-varying Framework," The Energy Journal, , vol. 37(1_suppl), pages 29-54, January.
    10. Dong, Xiao-Ying & Hao, Yu, 2018. "Would income inequality affect electricity consumption? Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 215-227.
    11. Xiao Tang & Zhengwen Liu & Hongtao Yi, 2016. "Mandatory Targets and Environmental Performance: An Analysis Based on Regression Discontinuity Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-16, September.
    12. Sawhney, Rapinder & Thakur, Kaveri & Venkatesan, Bharadwaj & Ji, Shuguang & Upreti, Girish & Sanseverino, John, 2014. "Empirical analysis of the solar incentive policy for Tennessee solar value chain," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 368-376.
    13. Zhang, Qianxue & Liao, Hua & Hao, Yu, 2018. "Does one path fit all? An empirical study on the relationship between energy consumption and economic development for individual Chinese provinces," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 527-543.
    14. Herrerias, M.J. & Joyeux, R. & Girardin, E., 2013. "Short- and long-run causality between energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence across regions in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 1483-1492.
    15. Dong, C.G., 2012. "Feed-in tariff vs. renewable portfolio standard: An empirical test of their relative effectiveness in promoting wind capacity development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 476-485.
    16. Fan, Jing-Li & Wang, Jia-Xing & Hu, Jia-Wei & Yang, Yang & Wang, Yu, 2021. "Will China achieve its renewable portfolio standard targets? An analysis from the perspective of supply and demand," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    17. Zhao, Xiaoli & Lyon, Thomas P. & Song, Cui, 2012. "Lurching towards markets for power: China’s electricity policy 1985–2007," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 148-155.
    18. Cheng, Y.S. & Wong, W.K. & Woo, C.K., 2013. "How much have electricity shortages hampered China's GDP growth?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 369-373.
    19. Ma, Chunbo & He, Lining, 2008. "From state monopoly to renewable portfolio: Restructuring China's electric utility," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1697-1711, May.
    20. Johnson, Sean D. & Moyer, Elisabeth J., 2012. "Feasibility of U.S. renewable portfolio standards under cost caps and case study for Illinois," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 499-514.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Renewable energy Electricity China;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:4:p:1872-1878. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.