Technical and economic study of renewable-energy-powered system for a newly constructed city in China

Abstract

The power and transportation sectors are major carbon emission sources of cities in China, meanwhile, urbanization and industrialization remain the most important impetus for the Chinese economy. Thus, urban-level carbon mitigation is critical for China to realize a low carbon development strategy. This study designs two renewable-energy power-generation dominated power systems for a totally newly built Chinese city, Xiongan, considering emerging technologies, such as vehicle-to-grid as an energy storage facility and geothermal as a local renewable energy resource. The new energy systems are assessed from both economic and carbon emission aspects based on short &long terms power load forecasts. The simulation results shows that the optimal short-term system is a photovoltaic (PV)/geothermal generator/grid purchase/100 Li battery/converter. For the short term, the system's net present cost (NPC) is approximately $8.26B, and the average cost of valuable electrical energy (COE) produced by the system is approximately $0.0942/kWh. The optimal long-term system is a PV/geothermal generator /V2G/ converter, the NPC of the optimal system is approximately $47.7B, and the COE of the system is approximately $0.078/kWh. Energy bill and carbon emissions can both be cut sharply for the city if it adopts these new types of renewable energy dominated systems.