How and when China will exceed its renewable energy deployment targets

Abstract

This paper is focused on the renewable energy targets set by China in its 12th National Development Plan 2011–2015. In particular, the paper examines deployment targets and the means to achieve them, for hydro, wind and solar. These are its priority technologies, in which the country has a level of competitive advantage. For each of these energy sources, four projections have been produced. These projections show whether and when China will meet its deployment targets in terms of the cumulative amount of gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity by 2015. In doing this, historical data from 2005 to 2010 has been analyzed for all three energy sources. Both the average annual growth rate (AAGR), and the compound average growth rate (CAGR) have been computed, in terms of the world averages and China's national performance over this period. AAGR and CAGR have been used for producing four scenarios for each renewable energy, and a logarithmic scale has been applied to them in order to make them more reliable by smoothing out excessive fluctuations. The most likely scenarios for each technology are described. Finally, the gap between these scenarios and the respective national targets set for 2015 and 2020 are calculated.