Is China's energy transition pace driven by the supply-side or the demand-side?

Experiences and lessons for China's energy transition: From the firewood era to the low carbon era

Legal adaptation is considered a crucial part and one of the most effective tools of the global energy transition. The energy transition process promotes the rise of the renewable energy industry and brings a tremendous challenge to the law. How could or should the law adapt to the challenge of this global trend? This article will start this study from the case of Chinese wind energy development.China is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world for renewable energy. Although the large-scale development of wind energy started in 2000, China's wind power installed capacity reached 300 million kilowatts by 2021, and power generation accounted for about 7% of the total electricity consumption . This year's installed capacity of coal power is approximately 1 billion kilowatts, but its power generation accounted for 71.27% of the whole country . Two energy sources with three times the difference in installed capacity have ten times the difference in power generation. Why is China's electricity market so biased towards traditional energy? How did the large-scale wind curtailment in China occur? And what role should the law play in China's energy transition game to adapt and regulate the development of the electricity market and guide China's energy transition?This paper will use game theory to analyze China's power pricing system and the operation of China's national electricity transmission grid, so as to explore how the law has and should adapt to China's renewable energy development under its unique power market system and power administrative management system, to minimize the rent-seeking behavior generated in power transmission and support the development of wind energy. This paper will propose solutions to the problem of wind curtailment in China's energy transition from a legal adaptation perspective and provide a reference for other countries.

Implications of near-term mitigation on China's long-term energy transitions for aligning with the Paris goals

Considering the current status of China's energy mix, requirements for the energy transition and the development level of renewables, oil and gas will play an essential role in China's long-term energy supply, with its proportion in the primary energy consumption accounting for around 30% until 2040. The goals of "carbon peak" and "carbon neutrality" put forward higher requirements for international cooperation in the oil and gas sector along the Belt and Road (B&R), together with low carbon development. Chinese state oil companies, represented by PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC, actively participate in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), collaboratively operating many world-class oil and gas development projects, as well as technological innovation and practice. The annual oil and gas equity production from these cooperation projects exceeds 200 million tons of oil equivalent, which weighs heavily in the international energy cooperation, and accelerates the energy transition. With the background of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, fossil fuels remain of critical importance to the current energy system. Cooperation in oil and gas along B&R faces unprecedented opportunities, multiple environmental supervision and carbon emission reduction pressure. In view of above situation, countermeasures to the development in oil and gas along B&R are put forward: 1) strengthen the cooperation and development in oil and gas along B&R to enhance the international energy cooperation, natural gas production and utilization, and accelerate the energy transition to diversify China's energy mix; 2) improve energy use efficiency and optimize energy use in exploration and development system, strengthen the construction of intelligent oil fields and shore power, and implement decarbonizing measures throughout the industrial chain to increase the pace and extent of energy conservation and emission reduction; 3) actively develop carbon-negative technologies and infrastructure, and promote carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) application represented by carbon dioxide flooding, water alternating gas flooding etc., gradually shifting to a lower carbon energy system; 4) promote the integrated development of traditional resources and alternative energy, open channels of financial support, technology and talents, actively deploy new energy business, and coordinate the development of non-fossil energy industries such as solar energy and wind power.

Does energy transition help narrow the urban-rural income gap? Evidence from China

China's energy transition is a pivotal component of global efforts to combat climate change. This study identifies the synergistic effects of key factors driving this transition, including social-technology-economic, policy, investment, governance indicators. Asymmetric nexus impacts are explored by using quantile-on-quantile regression (QQR) method. Further, the synergistic effects of key drivers on China's energy transition are examined by model 1–4. The findings show that reconciling the tradeoffs of reducing coal emissions and promoting clean energy are crucial for China's energy transition. Urban growth, environmental taxes, financial development, and strong environmental governance and institutional quality significantly support these efforts, but show different synergistic effects scenarios. These findings also reinforce the need for a more inclusive response to China's energy sustainability challenges, in particular, coordinated policies and strategies in coal-reliant industrial sectors are critical for a successful energy transition.

Facilitating peaceful rise: The increasing role of geopolitics and domestic legitimacy in China's energy policy

Unveiling energy transition strategy: A deep dive into China's ambitious renewable energy policy and its impact on carbon emission dynamics

In recent years, as the world's population continues to increase, it has brought a series of pollution problems, which causes global warming intensified. In order to solve the problem of climate warming, the development trend of low carbon and environmental protection is gradually becoming the keynote of global social and economic development. At the same time, due to the excessive reliance on energy consumption for the development of China's economy in the past, the problems of energy shortage and environmental degradation have become more and more serious in China in recent years. Therefore, the carbon emission reduction index has become one of the important assessment indicators for the development of China's economic quality and an unavoidable key task for economic development. Energy is the basis of economic and social development, in the process of economic development, China will inevitably encounter energy shortages, environmental pollution problems, the development of renewable energy has become a general trend, the transformation and optimization of the traditional energy structure is an effective way to achieve this goal and an important means. This paper analyzes and puts forward suggestions on the current situation of China's energy transition, factors affecting energy transition and future development trends through the literature review method and comparative analysis method.

Research topic identification and trend prediction of China's energy policy: A combined LDA-ARIMA approach

The article is devoted to the study of prerequisites, directions and measures to ensure China's energy transition. The purpose of the article is to study China's experience in ensuring the energy transition and identify key directions and policy initiatives for the implementation and development of sustainable energy innovations. It has been established that China is the world's largest energy consumer and in recent years has been characterized by continuous economic growth and acceleration of industrialization, development of the energy industry. The energy structure was analyzed and the dominance of coal production and consumption was determined – the first place in the world. The activity of green energy development has been revealed, but the share of clean energy sources in total energy consumption is still low. It was determined that the implementation of the principle of sustainable development and energy innovation is a priority for the further development of the Chinese economy. The key directions for ensuring the energy transition have been identified: diversified energy supply; green and low-carbon development; technological transformation and development. The dynamics of China's energy imports from 2013 to 2022 are analyzed. It was established that China ranked 17th in the Energy Transition Index in 2023, and for the first time entered the TOP-20 countries according to this ranking, which indicates the growing potential of China's energy transition. It analyzed the reasons for reducing energy consumption by 10,000 yuan of GDP from 2013 to 2022. In particular, it is notable that individual companies have reduced energy consumption and environmental pollution, promoting energy conservation, emission reduction and circular economy. It found that, along with the problem of high industrial emissions, China has become a leader in the adoption of clean energy technologies with investments in clean energy technologies exceeding US$650 billion per year. Key political initiatives contributing to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and the introduction of energy innovations are analyzed.

How to promote the effective implementation of China’s Renewable Portfolio Standards considering non-neutral technology?

With the acceleration of the global energy transition, power storage is being highly valued by governments as a key technology to balance the volatility of renewable energy and improve the flexibility of the power system. As a pioneer of energy transformation, Germany's "Electric Energy Storage Strategy" provides valuable experience and reference for the development of the global energy storage industry. This paper aims to deeply analyze the core content and implementation path of Germany's electric energy storage strategy and its enlightenment for the development of China's energy storage industry, in order to provide reference for the policy formulation and practical exploration of China's electric energy storage industry.

Does low-carbon energy transition mitigate energy poverty? The case of natural gas for China

Governments actively encourage renewable energy use to deal with climate change and achieve carbon emission reduction targets. It is crucial to find out the driving factors that affect the utilization of renewable energy. Therefore, based on China's 2010-2016 input-output table, this paper uses the input-output model and structural decomposition analysis (SDA) to analyze the driving factors of renewable energy changes in the production end, household end, and the aggregate economy. The results show that the changes in the consumption structure (F) is the most crucial factor for renewable energy use, followed by technology progress (T) and final demand per capita (V). Sector SEHW (supply of electric power, heat power, and water) and MCRP (manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products) are the two vital sectors to achieve China's energy transition of the production level. However, as for households, the proportion of renewable energy has been declining. Hence, the government should promote renewable energy use and achieve the green transition in production and household levels.