Current status, challenges, and perspectives of Sichuan׳s renewable energy development in Southwest China
Introduction
With the increasing imbalance between energy supply and demand in China, great expectation has being placed on renewable energy sources, including hydropower, solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal. Given its zero pollution emissions, renewable energy development is considered to be an efficient path to reduce air pollution and national GHG emissions. As one of the main carbon emission countries, the Chinese government made a political commitment to the international community to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP. The commitment entails that by 2030 there should be a 60–65% reduction from 2005 levels. In order to achieve that goal, the government has made a large investment in renewable energy development since 2007 and the installed capacity has correspondingly boomed [1]. This boom has been led by wind energy capacity with an annual average growth rate of 67.15% during 2008–2014.
Although great progress has been achieved for renewable energy development, the electricity delivery has increasingly become one of the primary issues in China, especially in the Chinese “3-N” regions (north, northeast, and northwest regions) [2]. Furthermore, a recent economic downturn slowed the growth in electricity consumption. These led to a relative excess in electricity capacity. Thus, most renewable power generators have suffered via mandatory output restriction from the power grid [3]. Taking wind curtailment for example, the lost wind power generation in “3-N” regions was up to 12.3 TW h in 2011. This eventually caused a 6.6 Billion RMB loss for investors [4]. Domestic wind energy capacity utilization hours from 2011 to 2014 are 1920 h, 1890 h, 2046 h, and 1905 h, respectively, falling below those of US, Germany, and Spain [5].
Owing to the wind and solar energy curtailment in the “3-N” regions, the distributed energy utilization system has received much attention [6]. Meanwhile, five domestic power generation groups began to seek new renewable energy bases with greater proximity to the load center. The renewable energy in the eastern and southern part of China will therefore meet development opportunities over the next several decades. Nevertheless, due to vast territory of China, the major obstacles to renewable energy development vary from area to area. The factors that influence China׳s renewable energy development are obviously complex and diverse. Therefore, this paper aims to use Sichuan Province as a case study to investigate renewable energy development in the southwest area of China via related studies. We then attempt to identify the challenges the area faces with regard to renewable energy development.
The southwest area of China in this paper refers to Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Tibet. Generally, Sichuan is the most representative province since it includes different characteristics of climate, topography, economic development, and demography that are common throughout the southwest area of China. In this paper, we provide an introduction of the economic development and energy consumption in Sichuan. Then we give an overview of Sichuan׳s non-hydro renewable energy resources and their development. Furthermore, we discuss the problems and challenges of Sichuan׳s renewable energy development and analyze underlying causes. Finally, we give our perspectives for the future development of renewable energy in Sichuan.
Section snippets
Current status of Sichuan׳s energy utilization
Sichuan is one of the most important economic inland areas in China with an area of 0.48 million km2 and a population density of 166.2 pop/km2. The average annual growth rate of GDP was 12.7% during 2005–2014 [7], which is well above the national average. Sichuan can be divided into 5 different development priority zones based on the physical environment, abundance of natural resources, and urban infrastructure (see details in Fig. 1 and Table 1). Generally, the Chengdu economic area is the core
Resources endowment
Compared with China׳s “3-N” regions, solar energy resource distribution in Sichuan is very heterogeneous. The spatial distribution tends to decline from west to east. According to a preliminary estimation from research, the total quantity of radiation in Sichuan is approximately 3200–6390 MJ/m2 per year, and the sun shines 750–2680 h annually [10]. In particular, the regions of Ganzi, Aba, Liangshan, and Panzhihua have the richest solar energy resources with an annual radiation of 4500–6400 MJ/m2
Problems and challenges of Sichuan׳s renewable energy development
According to the renewable energy development targets of Sichuan׳s 12th Five-Year Plan of energy development, the completion schedule of renewable energy projects have failed to meet goals. Besides the national problems such as finance and policy barriers, there remain special issues in Sichuan׳s renewable energy development.
Recommendations and conclusions
Given the adverse impact of problems and challenges discussed above, the adoption of policies and measures to promote healthy development of renewable energy in Sichuan is significant and necessary.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge the support of the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program, No. 2013CB036406), the National Science-technology Support Plan (2008BAB29B09), the State Key Program of Natural Science Foundation of China (50539140), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50679098), and the Energy Foundation of the US (China Sustainable Energy Program, No. G-0610-08581). We thank LetPub (www.letpub.com) for its linguistic assistance during the
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