Optimizing China's onshore wind farm layout crucial for carbon neutrality

Abstract

China is taking renewable energy seriously for meeting ambitious carbon neutrality goal, and eagerly filling available space to harness the wind power. It is therefore crucial to rethink the unintended consequences. Herein, we employ the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach to assess the onshore wind farm from the perspective of aligning carbon neutrality goal in China. We find that the total carbon emissions of onshore wind farm in China in 2018 was ca. 11 Mt. CO2e, or 24.9 gCO2e per kWh on average, which indeed mitigated ca. 290 Mt. CO2e for replacing conventional coal power. Moreover, province-level carbon emissions and emission intensity outputs have been quantified. It shows that China's coastal provinces are preferred regions for the development of wind power industry after evaluating of China's onshore wind farms layout under multiple indicators. However, if existed wind farm layout mode which presents a significant conflict between resource potentials and demand market can be optimized, a scenarios-based analysis shows that 2.4 to 6.2 billion metric tons CO2e can be probably avoided every year between 2023 and 2060. This amount probably equals over half of the carbon emissions from fuel combustion in China.