Trajectory and drivers of China's consumption-based and production-based renewable energy consumption

Abstract

China's renewable energy consumption was 6.37 EJ in 2018, making it the world's largest renewable energy consumer. Exploring the economic and social driving factors behind the dynamic evolution of renewable energy consumption in China not only serve China better development of renewable energy, but also has implications for other developing countries. Existing research was limited to apparent consumption based on static geographic boundaries, and ignored the embodied renewable energy consumption in trade, although China is the largest trade exporter and the second trade importer. This work extended the existing research to account production-based and consumption-based renewable energy consumption applying the multi-region input-output model and analyzed the embodied renewable energy flows in China's international trade. Furthermore, this paper adopted structural decomposition analysis to explore the driving factors of renewable energy production and consumption from consumption coefficient, production structure and final demand. The results show that, firstly, as the net embodied renewable energy importer, China's the renewable energy consumption on the production-based increased from 1.08 E+ 06 TJ to 6.79 E+ 06 TJ, and on the consumption-based increased from 1.08 E+ 06 TJ to 7.13 E+ 06 TJ. Secondly, major of embodied renewable energy came from China's trade with developed economies but the pattern of embodied renewable energy was undergoing change. Thirdly, the decomposition results showed that energy structure and final consumption were the leading drivers in China's renewable energy consumption growth. For further expansion of its renewable energy, policymaking should pay more attention on the adjustment and optimization of energy consumption structure and industrial structure to promote production side from sustainable consumption pattern.