Analysis on the evolution law and influencing factors of Beijing’s power generation carbon emissions

Abstract

Emission reduction is a necessary choice for achieving carbon neutrality, and one of the important preconditions for its successful implementation is to determine the evolution law and identify the factors affecting carbon emissions from power generation. For providing guidance on the formulation of carbon emissions reduction scheme, this paper established a scientific direct carbon emission accounting model for power generation with the bottom-up analysis method, and a decomposition model of the factors influencing carbon emissions from power generation was constructed utilizing the Kaya Identity and LMDI decomposition approach. Then, research was conducted based on the power generation and consumption in Beijing from 2005 to 2019, and the main conclusions are as follows: (1) Beijing’s thermal power CO2 emissions have not changed much and are generally shows a downward trend. The structural changes in thermal power carbon emissions show that the main source of carbon emissions in Beijing has gradually changed from raw coal to natural gas. (2) From the decomposition of influencing factors of direct carbon emissions, energy structure, conversion efficiency and power intensity are three drivers to reduce power-related carbon emissions. (3) Economic development is the main driver of increase in carbon emissions. (4) Beijing’s thermal power carbon intensity is declining, and the electricity consumption of various sectors shows a certain positive correlation with direct carbon emissions. These results show that scientifically quantifying the contribution of the decomposed factors to the change of carbon emissions from thermal power generation can provide a directional guidance for the formulation of carbon emissions reduction scheme, so as to achieve the “double carbon” goals more reasonably and effectively.