IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/agrebk/qt9z42t224.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rapid cost decrease of renewables and storage accelerates the decarbonization of China’s power system

Author

Listed:
  • He, Gang
  • Lin, Jiang
  • Sifuentes, Froylan
  • Liu, Xu
  • Abhyankar, Nikit
  • Phadke, Amol

Abstract

The costs for solar photovoltaics, wind, and battery storage have dropped markedly since 2010, however, many recent studies and reports around the world have not adequately captured such dramatic decrease. Those costs are projected to decline further in the near future, bringing new prospects for the widespread penetration of renewables and extensive power-sector decarbonization that previous policy discussions did not fully consider. Here we show if cost trends for renewables continue, 62% of China's electricity could come from non-fossil sources by 2030 at a cost that is 11% lower than achieved through a business-as-usual approach. Further, China's power sector could cut half of its 2015 carbon emissions at a cost about 6% lower compared to business-as-usual conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • He, Gang & Lin, Jiang & Sifuentes, Froylan & Liu, Xu & Abhyankar, Nikit & Phadke, Amol, 2020. "Rapid cost decrease of renewables and storage accelerates the decarbonization of China’s power system," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt9z42t224, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt9z42t224
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9z42t224.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Evan D. Sherwin & Max Henrion & Inês M. L. Azevedo, 2018. "Estimation of the year-on-year volatility and the unpredictability of the United States energy system," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 3(4), pages 341-346, April.
    2. Yuan, Jiahai & Xu, Yan & Hu, Zheng & Zhao, Changhong & Xiong, Minpeng & Guo, Jingsheng, 2014. "Peak energy consumption and CO2 emissions in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 508-523.
    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. Jiahai Yuan & Mengya Wu & Weirong Zhang & Yu Guo & Minpeng Xiong, 2018. "Coal Power Environmental Stress Testing in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-19, June.
    2. Li, Xi & Yu, Biying, 2019. "Peaking CO2 emissions for China's urban passenger transport sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    3. Li, Xiaoyu & Yao, Xilong, 2020. "Can energy supply-side and demand-side policies for energy saving and emission reduction be synergistic?--- A simulated study on China's coal capacity cut and carbon tax," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    4. Yong Bian & Zhi Yu & Xuelan Zeng & Jingchun Feng & Chao He, 2018. "Achieving China’s Long-Term Carbon Emission Abatement Targets: A Perspective from Regional Disparity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-19, November.
    5. Lizhan Cao & Hui Wang, 2022. "The Slowdown in China’s Energy Consumption Growth in the “New Normal” Stage: From Both National and Regional Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-21, April.
    6. Li, Na & Zhang, Xiaoling & Shi, Minjun & Zhou, Shenglv, 2017. "The prospects of China’s long-term economic development and CO2 emissions under fossil fuel supply constraints," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 11-22.
    7. Wang, Feng & Liu, Xiying & Nguyen, Tue Anh, 2018. "Evaluating the economic impacts and feasibility of China's energy cap: Based on an Analytic General Equilibrium Model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 114-126.
    8. Larisa Vazhenina & Elena Magaril & Igor Mayburov, 2022. "Resource Conservation as the Main Factor in Increasing the Resource Efficiency of Russian Gas Companies," Resources, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-14, December.
    9. Zhao, Changhong & Zhang, Weirong & Wang, Yang & Liu, Qilin & Guo, Jingsheng & Xiong, Minpeng & Yuan, Jiahai, 2017. "The economics of coal power generation in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 1-9.
    10. Pruethsan Sutthichaimethee & Harlida Abdul Wahab, 2021. "A Forecasting Model in Managing Future Scenarios to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of Thailand s Environmental Law: Enriching the Path Analysis-VARIMA-OVi Model," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(4), pages 398-411.
    11. Giwa, Adewale & Alabi, Adetunji & Yusuf, Ahmed & Olukan, Tuza, 2017. "A comprehensive review on biomass and solar energy for sustainable energy generation in Nigeria," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 620-641.
    12. Mu, Yaqian & Wang, Can & Cai, Wenjia, 2018. "The economic impact of China's INDC: Distinguishing the roles of the renewable energy quota and the carbon market," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P2), pages 2955-2966.
    13. Huo, Tengfei & Ma, Yuling & Xu, Linbo & Feng, Wei & Cai, Weiguang, 2022. "Carbon emissions in China's urban residential building sector through 2060: A dynamic scenario simulation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PA).
    14. Wu, Dong & Geng, Yong & Pan, Hengyu, 2021. "Whether natural gas consumption bring double dividends of economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions reduction in China?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    15. Mathy Sane & Miroslav Hajek & Joseph Phiri & Jamilu Said Babangida & Chukwudi Nwaogu, 2022. "Application of Decoupling Approach to Evaluate Electricity Consumption, Agriculture, GDP, Crude Oil Production, and CO 2 Emission Nexus in Support of Economic Instrument in Nigeria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-15, March.
    16. Qiang Du & Xinran Lu & Yi Li & Min Wu & Libiao Bai & Ming Yu, 2018. "Carbon Emissions in China’s Construction Industry: Calculations, Factors and Regions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-17, June.
    17. Yuan, Jiahai & Wang, Yang & Zhang, Weirong & Zhao, Changhong & Liu, Qian & Shen, Xinyi & Zhang, Kai & Dong, Liansai, 2017. "Will recent boom in coal power lead to a bust in China? A micro-economic analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 645-656.
    18. Yuxue Zhang & Rui Wang & Xingyuan Yang & He Zhang, 2023. "Can China Achieve Its Carbon Emission Peak Target? Empirical Evidence from City-Scale Driving Factors and Emission Reduction Strategies," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-21, May.
    19. Yuan, Jiahai & Lei, Qi & Xiong, Minpeng & Guo, Jingsheng & Hu, Zheng, 2016. "The prospective of coal power in China: Will it reach a plateau in the coming decade?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 495-504.
    20. Jie Li & Peng Mao & Hui Liu & Jiawei Wei & Hongyang Li & Jingfeng Yuan, 2020. "Key Factors Influencing Low-Carbon Behaviors of Staff in Star-Rated Hotels—An Empirical Study of Eastern China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-26, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Biological Sciences; Commerce; Management; Tourism and Services; Strategy; Management and Organisational Behaviour; Affordable and Clean Energy;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cdl:agrebk:qt9z42t224. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dabrkus.html .

    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.