OverviewWith a total population of 1.36 billion (World Bank 2017), China faces the dual challenge of fighting climatechange while maintaining its growing economy. Accounting for 29.5% of the world’s total CO_2 emissions(European Commission 2017), China’s energy roadmap will have a significant impact on the global low-carbonenergy transformation throughout the coming decades. In their submitted Intended Nationally DeterminedContribution (NDRC 2015), the country aims to achieve the peaking of CO_2 emissions around 2030 or earlier whileincreasing the total share of renewable energy fuels in primary energy consumption to 20%. Given its track recordof overachieving set climate goals (see NEA and NDRC 2016), this research’s model results confirm China’sabilitity to fulfill its ambitions towards a sustainable energy economy throughout 2050.MethodsWith the aim to project China’s energy system, the linear cost-optimizing model GENeSYS-MOD (Löffler et al.2017) is applied to power, heat, as well as transportation sectors. Being a sector-coupling model, a wholistic energypath based on regional (geographic, demographic, and economic) assumptions until 2050 is calculated at aresolution of five-year steps. For this purpose, technological parameters, such as operational lifetimes, timeslicesefficiency and availability factors are integrated. To allow a deeper understanding of regional disparities, primarilycaused by varying renewable fuel potentials, power and heat consumption, China is segmented into eight subregions.The 100% RES scenario of this research restricts the total CO_2 budget with the aim of an energy systempowered by solely renewable technologies. In comparison, the database for the Business As Usual (BAU) scenariois provided by the New Policies scenario of the IEA (2016) and lays out a more conservative path. Furthermore,GENeSYS-MOD has been expanded by endogenous grid simulation. In addition to model specific analyses, thisresearch provides a profound foundation on the political framework and existing policies by integrating informationfrom China’s 13th Five Year Plan (CCCP 2015; NEA and NDRC 2016).ResultsThroughout the nation’s energy transformation, solar power will dominate the energy mix with a share of 70% (seeFigure 1 and Table 1) by 2050, followed by wind generation (17%) and hydropower (12%). China’s current heavyreliance on fossil energy carriers in the process (high) heat sector, primarily based on coal and gas will slowly fadeout in favor of biomass (around 50%) and power to heat (around 40%). As for district (low) heat, mainly heatpumps and a 10% share of biomass are projected for 2050. Concerning the transportation sectors, both passengerand freight slowly shift towards renewable technologies, including hydrogen and electric-based means of transit.ConclusionsThe model results proof that a transition towards a low-carbon energy system in the power, heat, and transportationsector until 2050 is both technically feasible and economically archievable. Due to existing potentials and largescaleapplicability, solar power will establish as the key power technology by 2050. While the northwestern regionsare high in hydroelectric and solar power, the east coast is struggeling to supply the needs of the high populatedmegacities. Given the imbalance of high renewable potentials in the west and heavy energy demand in coastalregions in the east, the model confirms the necessity to expand China’s existing backbone grid from west to east. Byincreasing the capacity of the West-to-East transmission line, China can become independent of fossil fuels.
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