Internal spillover effect of carbon emission between transportation sectors and electricity generation sectors

Abstract

The exact carbon reduction potential of transportation electrification has not been answered directly from the coupled view of electric power transmission and transportation. To address this issue, the multi-regional input-output model and quasi-input–output model are used. Through simulation results comparison between the baseline scenario and transportation electrification scenario, we can observe that transportation electrification scenario would finally reduce 403 million tons, while the increase of 302 million tons of CO2 from the electricity generation sector due to the spatial spillover effect offsets the reduced 705 million-tons decarbonization benefits of the traffic transportation sector, as well as the decarbonization benefits of cleaner electricity generation. The total reduced CO2 emissions under the combined scenario are 1997 million tons, which is 94 million tons larger than the overall effect of the separate implementation of transportation electrification scenario and cleaner electricity generation scenario. We conclude that to reduce carbon emission transfer, much greater attention needs to be paid to cleaner generation mix construction.