Prospects for Energy Savings and GHG Emissions Reductions from Energy Efficiency

Abstract

Rapid industrialisation and urbanisation are expected to continue in China. Energy efficiency improvement (EEI), namely reducing the national energy intensity, is a very important energy conservation and carbon emission reduction index for China. China has adopted measures to improve energy efficiency and achieve the objectives of the 11th Five Year Plan. (The central government of China planned to reduce the GDP-based energy intensity of China by 20 % in 2006–10.) In 2005, an input-output structural decomposition analysis showed a decline in energy savings and emission reductions (ESER) in the energy sector of 33 and 34 % respectively, in the total production-related energy consumption and carbon emissions. Further, by using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model for China, my research team and I analysed the potential effect of EEI on ESER over the period of 2013 to 2030. Based on the decrease in energy intensity from 2010 to 2030, we considered three scenarios: baseline (decrease by 9 %); moderate (decrease by 44 %); and ambitious (decrease by 68 %). Compared to the baseline scenario, EEI in the moderate scenario will gain 36.1 billion tons of coal equivalent standard (BTce) of energy savings and 21.0 billion tons of carbon equivalent (BTC) carbon emission reductions for China. The ambitious scenario will result in 48.4 BTce of energy savings and 28.2 BTC of carbon emission reductions for China. More than half of the ESER are from electricity and heat production and distribution sectors.