Energy Transition In China Research Articles

Considering Carbon–Hydrogen Coupled Integrated Energy Systems: A Pathway to Sustainable Energy Transition in China Under Uncertainty

The low-carbon construction of integrated energy systems is a crucial path to achieving dual carbon goals, with the power-generation side having the greatest potential for emissions reduction and the most direct means of reduction, which is a current research focus. However, existing studies lack the precise modeling of carbon capture devices and the cascaded utilization of hydrogen energy. Therefore, this paper establishes a carbon capture power plant model based on a comprehensive, flexible operational mode and a coupled model of a two-stage P2G (Power-to-Gas) device, exploring the “energy time-shift” characteristics of the coupled system. IGDT (Information Gap Decision Theory) is used to discuss the impact of uncertainties on the power generation side system. The results show that by promoting the consumption of clean energy and utilizing the high energy efficiency of hydrogen while reducing reliance on fossil fuels, the proposed system not only meets current energy demands but also achieves a more efficient emission reduction, laying a solid foundation for a sustainable future. By considering the impact of uncertainties, the system ensures resilience and adaptability under fluctuating renewable energy supply conditions, making a significant contribution to the field of sustainable energy transition.

Retraction Note: Circular economy and biomass utilization: economic prospect for sustainable energy transition in China

Retraction Note: Circular economy and biomass utilization: economic prospect for sustainable energy transition in China

Exploring the path to promote energy revolution: Assessing the impact of new energy demonstration city construction on urban energy transition in China

Cities serve as the epicenter of energy consumption, and urban energy transition (UET) is a pivotal prerequisite for achieving carbon peaking and neutrality goals. Leveraging the quasi-natural experiment of China's New Energy Demonstration City Construction (NEDCC), this paper evaluates its impact on UET based on balanced panel data spanning 272 cities from 2006 to 2022. Employing the difference-in-differences model, our estimates underscore NEDCC's facilitative role in promoting UET, a finding corroborated by a series of robustness tests. Mechanism examinations reveal that NEDCC advances UET by enhancing government strategic guidance, fostering green technological innovation, promoting industrial structural upgrading, and optimizing resource allocation efficiency. Furthermore, in cities with higher administrative tiers and more advanced digital finance, NEDCC exerts a more pronounced effect on UET. Conversely, cities endowed with richer resources and pursuing more ambitious economic growth targets exhibit weaker responses to NEDCC's UET-boosting influence. Additionally, NEDCC's demonstration effect surpasses its diffusion effect on neighboring cities, generating a positive spatial spillover that propels their energy transitions. This study offers a novel policy lens for advancing UET.

Retraction Note: Impact of government governance and environmental taxes on sustainable energy transition in China: fresh evidence using a novel QARDL approach.

Retraction Note: Impact of government governance and environmental taxes on sustainable energy transition in China: fresh evidence using a novel QARDL approach.

Retraction Note: How does green digital finance drive the low-carbon energy transition in China?

Retraction Note: How does green digital finance drive the low-carbon energy transition in China?

Regulatory pathways to green energy transition for sustainable environment: The fostering role of human rights, banking sector development, economic complexity, and economic freedom

Green energy transition directly contributes to Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 13, which are among the 17 development goals determined by the United Nations. However, what are the determinants of this green energy transition? Researchers' answers to this question will assist in formulating policy prescriptions that will enable concrete steps toward achieving these goals. This study investigates how the development of the banking sector, human rights, economic complexity, and economic freedom affect the green energy transition in China, which is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases globally but is also one of the leading countries in renewable energy production. The study covers the years 1995–2022. Advanced time series analysis methods were employed, and robust results were reported. According to the findings, Economic Freedom, Human Rights, and Economic Complexity have increased the transition to green energy in China. No effect of banking sector development was found. The country should improve economic freedom and human rights and increase knowledge/innovation-based production to accelerate China's transition to green energy and contribute to environmental sustainability.

Assessing rural energy poverty and early warning based on long-run evolution for clean energy transition in China

Rural China grapples with pervasive energy poverty. This study aims to measure China's rural energy poverty and propose early warning strategies. It establishes a rural energy relative poverty evaluation system based on four dimensions: energy service effectiveness, consumption cleanliness, management integrity, and development sustainability. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process-Criteria Importance Though Intercriteria Correlation-Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution model, it calculates rural energy poverty indices for Chinese provinces, while ward cluster analysis sets regional and hierarchical early warning criteria. Findings indicate: (1) China's rural energy poverty index varies widely, with a low range of 0.49–0.52 and a high range above 0.65. The top 14 regions average a rural energy poverty index of 0.62. (2) Over 2015–2021, there is a 9.70% decrease in the index, indicating a general downward trend. While rural energy services' efficiency and management integrity improve, consumption cleanliness and development sustainability decline. (3) Spatially, energy poverty is higher in the west and north, notably lower in the east and south. The eastern coastal and central regions exhibit significantly lower poverty levels due to better economic foundations and leading energy transformations. (4) Nine provinces are red warning areas, witnessing declining sustainability but improving service effectiveness, consumption cleanliness, and management integrity. Weak links in energy poverty vary across regions in terms of service effectiveness, consumption cleanliness, management integrity, and development sustainability. This study enhances the rural energy poverty evaluation system and proposes regional, hierarchical, and phased early warning standards.

Research on the Mechanism of Two-Way Interaction between Digital Economy and Household Energy Transition in China

Research on the Mechanism of Two-Way Interaction between Digital Economy and Household Energy Transition in China

Tracking the provincial energy transition in China: A comprehensive index

Achieving an efficient, modern, and sustainable energy transition towards carbon neutrality has attracted worldwide attentions. Composite statistical indices are increasingly recognized as valuable tools for policymakers, offering enhanced understanding of the present condition and anticipated direction of energy transition. In this research, we constructed a comprehensive index to track provincial energy transition in China. With this index, we monitored the energy transition progress of 30 provinces in China. The Provincial energy transition index (PETI) scores exhibited considerable heterogeneity across provinces and throughout different time periods, with eastern provinces having the highest scores, and some northwestern and large coal provinces, like Shanxi, having the lowest scores. These findings indicated that provincial energy transition policies should be tailored to the local energy status and economic structures. The paper delineated conclusions and policy implications derived from the study's extensive evaluation. Specifically, effective ways to further improve a region's sustainable energy transition path include advancing the use of clean energy, vigorously promoting power grid construction, and investing in new energy sectors. The implementation of these strategies is expected to reduce energy consumption and carbon intensity, thereby decreasing carbon emissions, then ultimately accelerating the realization of the dual carbon targets.

From order to reorder: Assessment of the living environment of hydropower resettlement for just energy transition in China

Hydropower projects have contributed significantly to the world’s just energy transition, while at the cost of massive-scale resettlement and displacement. The principles of a just transition ensure that the low-carbon transition process is fair, inclusive and socially responsible. However, since hydropower resettlers are often involuntary, it incurs many socio-environmental disruptions for the affected. Whether the post-resttlement living environment of the resettlers can also be just and sustainable needs to be effectively evaluated. This paper establishes and validates an optimized deep neural network (DNN) approach for predictability and reliability. A comprehensive set of living environment development indicators is then used to assess the just transition in the living environment of resettlers, based on three typical hydropower station resettlement cases in the Wujiang River Basin in Guizhou Province, China. The results indicate that individual living condition, community development, and fairness in market and social participation have important impacts on the just transition of resettlers’ living environments. By summarizing the composite affiliation and score values of each sub-indicator, it is found that the Hongjiadu hydropower station has the lowest composite score of the resettlers’ living environment, ranging from 0.476 to 0.680, followed by the Dongfeng hydropower station, from 0.483 to 0.709. The resettlers of Qianzhong Hydropower Hub have the highest living environment status after resettlement, from 0.497 to 0.794. Although there are differences in the living environment scores of different hydropower stations, it is argued that the transition of the living environment in the stepped power stations along the Wujiang River is just and sustainable in the long term. This paper provides valuable insights into the just transition of hydropower and the living environment of the resettlers, so as to foster sustainable development policymaking.

Research on the Coupling Mechanism between Digital Economy Development and Household Energy Transition in China

In order to explore the relationship between the digital economy and China's household green energy structure and utilization efficiency, an empirical test is conducted based on the data of 31 Chinese provinces from 2015 to 2022 using a two-way panel fixed-effects model as well as a coupling model. The results show that the digital economy has a significant positive effect on household green energy structure and utilization efficiency; secondly, this paper focuses on the bi-directional relationship between the two, and finds that the overall coupling situation is good, and the digitalization level and household green energy utilization efficiency in the regions under the "inverted triangle" pattern are highly coupled. The study finds that the overall coupling is good, and the digitalization level and household green energy utilization efficiency in the "inverted triangle" pattern are highly coupled. This study provides a reference for accelerating the national energy transition, boosting China's digital economy in the reverse direction, and providing green and digital kinetic energy for realizing the overall high-quality development of the economy.

Digital disruption and energy efficiency: The impact of regional digitalization on China's industrial sector

Using the unique micro-data of industrial enterprises' Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and Sulfur oxides (SOx) emissions covering 58,725 enterprise-year observations, this paper investigates how digitalization affect energy efficiency. The empirical results show that regional digitalization can significantly promote the improvement of energy efficiency of industrial enterprises. Specifically, the result of PSM-DID method indicates that the impact of digitalization on energy efficiency is significantly enhanced by the “National innovative pilot cities” policy, while the dynamic result validates the continuity of industrial enterprises' energy efficiency. Moreover, regional digitalization has superior impact on enterprises within eastern region enterprises, the manufacturing sector, and with elevated liquidity and profitability levels. Finally, moderating effect suggests that technological innovation expand the positive impact of digitalization on enterprises’ energy efficiency. This study confirms regional digitalization can promote the energy efficiency of Chinese industrial enterprises, providing the policy suggestions to the energy transition in China.

Assessment of the potential of salt mines for renewable energy peaking in China

Renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, can reduce environmental pollution and promote the transformation of the energy structure. However, the intermittency and uncertainty of new energy sources such as wind and photovoltaics pose challenges to large-scale grid integration. Effective utilization of intermittent energy sources requires large-scale energy storage facilities. Salt rock is recognized as an excellent medium for underground large-scale energy storage with a wide range of applications. This paper identifies the potential of salt caverns to be used for large-scale energy storage by analyzing the distribution of wind and solar energy resources in China, taking into account the grid-connected infrastructure of the Chinese power grid and the geographic location of salt mines. The overlapping areas are identified for utilization in compressed air energy storage and hydrogen storage. Through meticulous categorization and analysis of the factors influencing salt cavern underground storage site selection, the AHP-EWM method is introduced to establish an objective hierarchy model for a comprehensive evaluation system of salt cavern underground storage site selection. The comprehensive planning of China's 20 major salt mines is conducted, and the research findings hold significant reference value for facilitating the low-carbon energy transition in China.

Rural household energy transition in China: Trends and challenges

Against the backdrop of both environmental and health issues caused by inefficient combustion of solid fuels in households, the transition to clean energy is a critical development imperative. This study uses publicly available administrative data spanning nearly 30 years at the provincial level to characterize the “business as usual” (BAU) energy transition in China's rural household sector in order to inform interventions needed to achieve clean energy goals. We first describe the temporal trends and spatial characteristics of energy transitions over the past three decades. We then use a simple two-way fixed effects model to estimate the role that household income growth plays in this transition process. Finally, we predict the timeline for the BAU rural energy transition with an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model. Our results show that China's rural household sector has gradually undergone a consistent but geographically uneven transition over the past three decades. Compared with warmer provinces without indoor heating, where a 1000 RMB increase in per capita income is associated with a 5–10% increase in the share of clean energy, in provinces with heating needs the predicted effect is less than 2%. ARIMA model projections suggest that without policy interventions, for most provinces in northern China the share of clean energy would remain less than 40% by the year 2050. The “clean heating program” implemented in the North China Plain in 2015 has therefore advanced the energy transition by 10 years in just the 3 years between 2015 and 2018. Together, these results show the potential for interventions in helping spur energy transitions.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Circular economy and biomass utilization: economic prospect for sustainable energy transition in China

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Circular economy and biomass utilization: economic prospect for sustainable energy transition in China

Energy justice and decarbonization: A critical assessment for just energy transition in China

As China strives for a sustainable and equitable energy future, understanding the dynamics of energy justice at the provincial level becomes crucial for effective policy formulation. This study investigates the status of energy justice across provinces in China and identifies key driving factors driving the transition towards a just energy system. Employing a comprehensive analytical framework, encompassing availability, affordability, sustainability, and responsibility—comprising 18 specific indicators of energy justice, the research evaluates disparities in energy access, affordability, and environmental impacts among provinces. Over the course of the last 17 years, a notable and positive evolution in energy justice is evident across the 30 provinces analyzed. This transformation is best encapsulated by the substantial increase in the average energy justice score, which has ascended from 0.0494 in 2005 to an impressive 0.1898 in 2021. Over the past 17 years, there has been a noteworthy enhancement in energy justice across three distinct regions (the East region, rising from 0.5291 to 0.1981; the Middle region progressing from 0.0498 to 0.1965; the West region, increasing from 0.0432 to 0.1733). The top 5 interactions among driving factors are as follows: energy consumption intensity and urbanization rate (0.3493), energy consumption intensity and industrial structure (0.3289), industrial structure and the level of marketization (0.3159), urbanization rate and the level of marketization (0.2959), and energy consumption intensity and the level of marketization (0.2786). The findings contribute to the growing discourse on energy justice by providing insights into the unique challenges and opportunities faced by different provinces in China. The implications of the research extend to policymakers, energy planners, and stakeholders involved in shaping China's energy landscape. By identifying the key determinants of energy justice at the provincial level, this study offers actionable recommendations to foster a more inclusive, sustainable, and equitable energy transition in the world's largest energy-consuming nation.

A functional dynamic framework for understanding new government-market relationships of smart energy transitions in China

The urgency for China to attain carbon neutrality has driven the world’s largest carbon-emitting nation to seek more effective climate and energy policies. The adoption of smart grid (SG) technologies, aimed at enabling and accelerating the shift from fossil fuel-dependent energy systems to more sustainable ones, has garnered mounting policy interest in China. However, the full potential of SG development has yet to be realised amidst the ongoing electricity market reforms in the country. A key but largely unanswered question pertains to how and the extent to which the evolving dynamics between the government and the market have influenced SG advancements. This paper aims to develop and apply an integrated framework of policy mixes and functional dynamics for smart energy transitions, and apply it to reanalyse a case study of SG policy developments in China. Our study entails a synthesis of primary research findings, shedding light on how electricity market reforms create institutional contexts within which new government-market dynamics emerge and condition the progress of SGs in China. Our study reveals that the Chinese government has adopted a controlled dynamic approach to modulate the relationships between the government and the market within the power sector. This approach has both facilitated the creation of an enabling policy environment and imposed certain barriers to SG developments. The dominance of state-owned incumbents have on the one hand created state-driven market demand, reduction in technology costs and the influence of utility-led policy networks, but on the other hand, placing constraints on the growth of SG technologies. Our policy recommendations: China needs to formulate and implement SG policies which can effectively overcome key barriers which include under-developed regulatory frameworks, utilities’ disincentives to invest in renewable energy, and insufficiency in end-user engagements.

How does green digital finance drive the low-carbon energy transition in China?

In the modern world, green digital financing is believed to be an efficient, resilient, and viable source of funding for crisis conditions and to solve the preceding issues in a timely manner. It is a modern tool of financing mainly introduced by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Following the paths, most economies started considering it to solve their national economic issues. Thus, to fulfill the requirements of the modern world, current research aims to study the driving role of green digital financing on low-carbon energy transition in China. Using the generalized method of moments (GMM) model based on data collected from 2015 to 2020, this research made an effort to determine the empirical nexus between the green digital financing index and the low-carbon energy transition index and to recommend the possible policy implications to the policymakers and other practitioners. Results have shown that a 0.27% rise in green digital financing is observed in the Chinese economy from scratch, and it resulted from a 0.365% efficiency in the low-carbon energy transition in China. Accordingly, the study resulted that the role of green digital finance is clustering in the Chinese renewable energy industry, which impacts both the performance of the Chinese renewable energy industry and the economy. For more resilience, extended efficiency and viable energy transition study suggested the practical implications for the stakeholders to consider for practice. The novelty of the study is its motivation, findings, and solutions.

Driving factors to agriculture total factor productivity and its contribution to just energy transition

This study explores the intricate relationship between agricultural productivity and the pursuit of a just energy transition in China. As the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and a nation grappling with environmental degradation and socio-economic disparities, China faces the imperative to transition toward a more sustainable and equitable energy system. This paper investigates the role of agriculture in this transition, recognizing its pivotal position as a significant emitter of greenhouse gases while also being vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. By examining the potential synergies and conflicts between agricultural productivity enhancement and the goals of reducing emissions and promoting social justice, this study aims to shed light on strategies that can effectively align agricultural development with the objectives of a just energy transition. The result indicates substantial internal disparities and strong agglomeration effects (referring to areas with similar agricultural total factor productivity) within China's agricultural total factor productivity distribution. Over the past 17 years (2005–2021), the average agricultural productivity has shown a commendable upward trend, marking a 2.8% growth rate. This increase signifies ongoing efforts and advancements in the agricultural sector, leading to improved productivity levels. Our results also show a significant positive spatial correlation in agricultural total factor productivity, suggesting a tendency for spatial agglomeration. The years 2005 and 2021 stand out as periods marked by significant adverse effects resulting from the interplay of diverse factors on agricultural productivity. By integrating findings from various sectors, this study provides insights into the complex interplay between agriculture and energy transition, emphasizing the need for integrated, holistic approaches that prioritize sustainability, fairness, and resilience in China's pursuit of a just energy future.

Measuring the energy transition in Chinese provinces: a new comprehensive evaluation approach

ABSTRACT In the past two decades, we have witnessed an unprecedented acceleration of the energy transition in China. The implications of the ongoing energy transition will reverberate across the established energy, economic, and environmental systems. This study constructed a new comprehensive evaluation index system to evaluate the energy transition in 30 Chinese provinces from 2000 to 2019. We found that the average score of China’s provincial energy transition in 2019 (0.518) was higher than that in 2000 (0.410); the average score of provincial energy transition from 2000 to 2019 was only 0.445. During this period, Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, Fujian, andIEA 2011 Guangdong were the top five provinces in terms of average scores, and Tianjin, Ningxia, Shanxi, Shanghai, and Hainan were the five provinces with the lowest average scores. We also found that provincial energy transition has significant peer-group characteristics, including region, income level, provincial energy trade, and international energy trade. Moreover, compared with the energy transition measured by comprehensive evaluation, the energy transition measured by energy structure underestimated the quality of energy transition in the eastern and central regions. It overestimated the quality of energy transition in the western region.