Author Archives: Kaare Sandholt

China’s challenging 2015 RE targets

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China’s twelve five-year plan set new targets for RE development towards 2015.

The plan include the following goals for 2015:

  1. RE should cover 9.5% of the total energy consumption
  2. RE should cover more than 20% of the total electricity production
  3. RE should play a significant role in the heating sector
  4. RE should be promoted by establishing 30 energy micro-grid demonstration projects, 100 New Energy cities, and 200 Green Energy Counties.

Let us look more at the targets for the power sector.

In 2015, the dominent RE source for power generation will be hydro power, covering around 76% of the total RE electricity generation. Wind energy will cover 16%, biomass power 6% and solar power 2%.

The 12-5 plan only present targets for 2015, not the years from 2011. But if you assume that the RE-development in % should be the same in the years to come, you get the following picture when focusing on wind energy, solar energy and biomass energy.

 

It is clear that wind power will continue to be the main provider of electricity, but actually the growth in deployment of wind will be significantly lower than in the last 5 year. In average the growth rate will be 27% for the years to 2015. More impressive is the targets for solar energy. Here the target is more than 2600% each year. Below are the development targets shown for each technology, including hydro power.

 

Until now the RE-development has surpassed all targets. But it might be a more challenging task to fulfill the new targets in the 12-5 plan. A number of barriers have to be removed in order to implement the 2015 targets:

For wind power and large scale solar power the integration into the energy systems are the most challenging task. Incentives for more flexible power plants, faster and better grid connection, wind turbines more suited for grid integration are some of the urgent measures.

For distributed energy like solar roof-top installations the regulatory framework, including feed-in tarifs (or net-meetering) and regulation for the grid companies on how to include local power production need to be in place.

And in general the massive development of RE technologies supported by economic incentives will soon drain the national support funding schemes and will require changes in the Renewable Energy Fund or additional funding sources.

The previous years have shown a clear will from both national and local governments to remove barriers for renewable energy, and I am quite confident that this will also happen in the years to come. However, the solutions should be implemented soon, if the RE development should continue in the expected pace.

A leaflet on the 12-5 plan RE-development is available in at www.cnrec.info.

 

 

 

 

Grid Integration of RE – lessons learnt from Europe

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This week I had the pleasure to visit the International Solar Energy Center (ISEC) in Lanzhou in Gansu and give a presentation ath the 9th International Summit on Solar and Wind Energy in Western China. The presentation gives a short overview of flexible energy systems and the latest development in trans-national grid planning in Europe.

The main messages are

  1. Flexible thermal power plant and flexible operation of the electricity and heating systems are key to integration of fluctuating wind and solar energy
  2. Institutional and economical barriers are serious challenges for a flexible energy system in China
  3. European experiences from the use of visions, scenarios and market studies before more detailed assessment of new grid project could be transferred to a Chinese context
  4. The challenges regarding grid planning and grid development in Europe and China are quite similar and mutual exchange of experience and solution would be benificial.

Find the presentation here: RE_integration_July_2012

 

China Renewable Energy Information Portal launched

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CNREC has recently launched a new information portal for renewable energy information in China and abroad. Check it out here in Chinese or here in English.

The portal will be updated frequently with new information. Already now the Chinese portal includes a library of publications and pictures.

Ideas for content and improvements of the portal are more than welcome. Send an email to editor@cnrec.org.cn with your comments.

PS: A long summer has past without activity on the blog. The autumn and winter ahead will hopefully leave time for more blogging activities on China Energy Viewpoint. So use the RSS feed to follow this blog in the future!

 

EU and China strengthen cooperation on Low Carbon Economy

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The EU China Trading Project EUCTP launched last October a Low Carbon Economy Platform and  a web site, which gives assest to information about relevant events, documents and activities in the cooperation between EU an China.

Recently a new work program for the EUCTPs project on Low Carbon Economy was launched – focusing on a number of quite topical issues, like electricity market reforms, technical standards for integration of renewables, pricing and market regulation and access to the electricity markets in China and EU. Also activities regarding energy efficiency and demand side management are part of the work program as well as “smart cities” and emission trading systems. See the full overview of the work program here: Low_Carbon_Economy-Activity_Update_EUCTP_II.

 

 

Carbon Trading might improve air quality in Beijing

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Today is yet another day in Beijing with gray sky and “Very unhealthy” air quality, at least according to the measurement from the US Embassy in Beijing (see the screen dump from my phone). But the Beijing Government is now acting on the bad situation.

In February the local government launched its plan for air quality improvement measures to be implemented this year in Beijing, as referred in China Daily. The city will cut PM 2.5 levels by 15 percent by 2015 compared with 2010 levels, and cut overall air pollution levels by 30 percent over the same period.

The plan includes the following items:

  • By the end of the year, the city will complete a network of 35 PM2.5 monitoring stations and establish a satellite remote sensing system to oversee the overall air condition.
  • By 2020, 1.6 million old automobiles designed with outdated emission standards will be weeded out.
  • By 2020, the government is expected to limit the city’s annual total consumption of coal within 10 million tons, 62 percent less than the amount estimated to be consumed by the end of 2015.
  • From now on, heavy-polluting and energy-consuming companies in oil refining, petrochemical, cement, iron and steel industries will not be allowed to open new plants or expand their current workplaces. By 2015, 1,200 factories producing asphalt, glass and ceramic will retreat from the city. By 2020, all cement plants run for profit in Beijing will be closed.
  • By 2020, the city will increase its forest area by 2 million mu (133,000 hectares) and increase water surface by 2,000 hectares, in an effort to improve the city’s environmental carrying capacity.

In March the measures were further explained in China Daily by Zhang Gong, head of the municipal Development and Reform Commission:

  • As vehicle exhaust accounts for 22.2 percent of the total emissions of PM 2.5, fine particulate matter 2.5 microns or less in diameter, Beijing attaches great importance to the development of public transportation and by 2015, a total of 660 km of metro lines should be in service,
  • A subsidy scheme will be issued to encourage consumers to buy new energy vehicles.
  • In addition, the city aims to cap its annual coal consumption at 15 million tons by 2015, by replacing coal used in coal-fired power plants with natural gas. At present, the coal consumption of coal-fired power plants in Beijing is 8.8 million tons a year.

In spite of the good intentions quite a lot Beijingers  would think that the plan is too little and too late, taking the current bad situation into account.

Luckily it is likely that a new initiative will further promote the efforts to improve the air quality in Beijing. Earlier this year the National Development and Reform Commission announced it would launch carbon-trading systems next year in five cities – Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chongqing, as well as in Guangdong and Hubei provinces. Beijing is now preparing for setting up the test trading system next year, according to a recent article in China Daily. The system will include both energy producers and energy consumers and will push for a substitution of coal with natural gas which has a lower content of CO2. More than 600 companies and industries with a carbon emission of more than 10,000 tons per year will be included in the trading system. An overall target for the quotas has not been fixed yet; it will be linked to city’s target to lower its carbon intensity – the amount of emissions per unit of GDP produced – by 18 percent during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15).

The implementation of the test trading system in the five cities and two provinces is an important step towards a more general CO2 quota system in China. Experiences from Europe show that a trading system is difficult to manage and might have the opposite impact if not set up correct and fine-tuned to changing circumstances. It shall be interesting to follow the implementation in Beijing – hopefully with utilisation of the European experiences to avoid the pitfalls and hopefully with many more “Blue-sky” days in Beijing as result. I am looking forward to be able to go by bike to work without using a mouth filter to survive!

UPDATE 11.06.2012:

The pollution in Beijing is now being discussed on ing.dk (in Danish of course) so I would contribute with a couple of pictures from Beijing today where the pollution is very low and the sky is very blue :-).

Apparently senior officials from the Ministry of the Environment find the US Embassy measurements illegal. Read more here.

 

Wind energy status in China

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My good friend, Jiang Liping, Vice president at State Grid Energy Research Institute, has an excellent blog with reflections on the development of energy in China. Recently she published an article which gives a status and prospects for wind energy in China. The article is written by leading wind energy experts and it gives a comprehensive overview of the development of wind energy, relevant regulation and support incentives, as well as an overview of current challenges regarding wind power integration. A must-read if you are interested in wind energy development!

 

My top 5 list for wind power integration in China

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30 March 2012 I had the pleasure to give a presentation on integration of renewables at the 2nd Grid Integration China week 2012.

My top 5 priority action list for improving integration of renewables looks like this:

  1. Incentives for a flexible energy system: Flexible thermal power plants, Flexible use of district heating, Better use of interconnectors
  2. Good wind power forecasts integrated in the system dispatch
  3. Reliable wind turbines: Grid code, Testing and certification
  4. New transmission grids
  5. Smart grids

My main point is, that the current challenges in wind power integration in China are linked to the incentives or rather the missing incentives for integration. Neither the dispatch centre nor the power producers have sufficient incentives to do an effort for integration of the electricity from wind power plants. If such incentives were put in place it would be fairly easy to make the existing system more flexible, and no new technology development is needed to ensure integration of up to at least 20 percent wind power into the electricity system. So this is my priority no 1.

If (or when!) these incentives are in place then of course it is very important to have reliable wind power prognoses in order to be able to make the right system dispatch and prepare for the use of regulating units in the operation hour. So good wind power forecast for system dispatch is my priority no 2.

Thirdly the wind farm should be able to enhance the system security, not to lower it. Therefore appropriate grid codes and certification of the wind turbines are essential for the further deployment of wind power. Luckily China recently approved good national grid codes for wind turbines, and certification has high priority.

Fourthly development of the grid is necessary to ensure a larger share of wind power and power from renewables in general. But notice that this in not the first priority. Nevertheless, grid development is a long-term discipline, so grid planning and timely development of the grid is very important, also in the short run.

Finally development of “smart grid” concepts should be promoted. The smart grid do not need to be smart-smart, but especially with focus on the demand side flexibility and the use of electricity for transport and heating require a more advanced information flow about prices to work dynamically. In the long run, the system security would need more advanced control mechanisms to ensure the dynamic security of supply.

You can download my presentation here: RE_integration_March_2012 (2.4 MB).

The presentation gives a short wrap-up of the conclusion from the two recent reports on wind power: the China Wind Energy Development Roadmap 2050, developed by Energy Research Institute and IEA, and the report on Integrated Solution Strategies, developed by SGERI and VESTAS. And a short introduction to China National Renewable Energy Centre :-).

 

Shale gas in China – upsides and downsides

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China wants to step up the utilisation of shale gas. According to an article in China Daily, the National Energy Administration aims for annual shale gas output of 6.5 billion cubic meter by 2015. The administration has said the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) will lay the foundations of large-scale production during the subsequent plan, when it aims for production of 100 billion cubic meter a year.

Ministry of Land and Resources data show that China has shale gas resources of 134 trillion cubic meters, of which 25 trillion cubic meters are recoverable, meaning that the country has surpassed theUnited States as the owner of the world’s biggest reserves of the unconventional gas. A study carried out by the US EIA estimates the technically recoverable shale gas resources even higher, to 1275 trillion cubic feet, equivalent to around 36 trillion cubic meters.

The use of natural gas in China is favorable from several viewpoints. Compared to the use of coal natural gas is cleaner, and both the local and the global environment will benefit from a substitution of coal based power production with a gas based. Exploration of the huge amount of shale gas will also reduce the dependence of imported fossil fuel in China.

But the use of natural gas in shale rock formations also has its flip-side. The gas is tied to the shale rock formations and the exploration requires special techniques. Here is what EIA writes about the exploration of shale gas in the US: “Hydraulic fracturing (commonly called “hydrofracking,” or “fracking,” or “fracing”) of shale rock formations is opening up large reserves of gas that were previously too expensive to develop. Hydrofracking involves pumping liquids under high pressure into a well to fracture the rock and allow gas to escape from tiny pockets in the rock. However, there are some potential environmental concerns that are also associated with the production of shale gas:

  • The fracturing of wells requires large amounts of water. In some areas of the country, significant use of water for shale gas production may affect the availability of water for other uses, and can affect aquatic habitats.
  • If mismanaged, hydraulic fracturing fluid — which may contain potentially hazardous chemicals — can be released by spills, leaks, faulty well construction, or other exposure pathways. Any such releases can contaminate surrounding areas.
  • Hydrofracturing also produces large amounts of wastewater, which may contain dissolved chemicals and other contaminants that require treatment before disposal or reuse. Because of the quantities of water used and the complexities inherent in treating some of the wastewater components, treatment and disposal is an important and challenging issue.
  • According to the United States Geological Survey, hydraulic fracturing “causes small earthquakes, but they are almost always too small to be a safety concern. In addition to natural gas, fracking fluids and formation waters are returned to the surface. These wastewaters are frequently disposed of by injection into deep wells. The injection of wastewater into the subsurface can cause earthquakes that are large enough to be felt and may cause damage.””

Considering the present and future difficulties with sufficient water supply and environmental protection in China it is necessary carefully to consider how the shale gas can be exploited in a sustainable way. Luckily it seams that Ministry of Land and Resources is aware of this. As Mr. Pan Jiping from ministry mentions to China Daily: “Survey and evaluation activity related to China’s shale gas reserves, which is still at the preliminary stage, is a key issue before China goes to commercial production”.
Pan adds that further technological breakthroughs and industry support policies are needed to draw companies into the sector and propel its growth.

 

 

Easy access to info on RE Policy

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It can be hard to find relevant and updated information about renewable energy policy and  policy measures. But luckily the International Energy Agency IEA has teamed up with IRENA (the International Renewable Energy Agency) to prepare and maintain a global database on this issues. The information regarding China has recently been updated, and the China National Renewable Energy Centre will do an effort to keep the information as topical as possible.

Find the database here or go to my link page.

 

The future RE development requires a new mind-set and sector reforms

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China needs a sustainable energy system, and it is necessary to change the traditional mind-set for planning and dispatching the system and also look at the institutional set-up for the energy system in order to implement a sustainable system. The message is clear from Shi Lishan, deputy director in the New Energy and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration. In an article in China Renewable Energy, the new magazine from China National Renewable Energy Centre, Shi Lishan explains what is needed for the transition to a sustainable energy system. The ingredients are a combination of energy efficiency measures and further large-scale deployment of renewable energy, both in centralised and in distributed systems. But introduction of large amount of fluctuating electricity in the electricity system will reduce the production from fossil fuelled power plants – existing base-load units will become producers in peak-load hours and in hours with little production from the uncontrollable renewable energy sources like wind and solar. It requires new thinking and also new division of roles between the utilities in the electricity sector to get this to work. Also the deployment of distributed power units like solar rooftops and small wind turbines requires new regulation and new tariff systems in order to make in possible to use the grid as buffer between the local demand and the local production.

Shi Lishan concludes that there are no technical for increasing the share of renewable energy in the electricity system. Neither would a high share of renewables necessarily affect the safe operation of the electric system. However, an increasing amount of renewable energy generation will have higher costs, it will require more reserve capacity in electric system, and it would require more transmission capacity and a more solid grid structure. A higher share of renewable will also affect the other generating units, as the amount of full-load hours will be lower. The requirements to electric system management and operation will be stricter and the users will pay for higher tariff.

The article is from my point of view a very important step in the development of a comprehensive understanding of the real challenges in the further deployment of renewable energy in China. For a number of years focus has been on the technology development and technical challenges with integration of wind. Now it is clear, that the institutional challenges are important obstacles for renewable energy, and that these challenges should be addressed quickly and efficient in the pathway to sustainability.

Read the article and post your comments below!