Revisiting CO2 mitigation potential and costs in China's electricity sector

Wenjia Cai, Can Wang and Jining Chen

Energy Policy, 2010, vol. 38, issue 8, 4209-4213

Abstract: To improve the reliability of sectoral mitigation potential and cost analysis, this paper made an in-depth exploration into China's electricity sector's thermal efficiency and inner structure. It is found that unlike what many literatures portray, China is actually among the world's leaders in coal-fired power plants' generating efficiencies; besides, although there are still numerous small and inefficient generating units in the current generation fleet, many of them are in fact playing important roles in supporting local economic development, meeting peak load needs, balancing heat and electricity supply and providing job opportunities to the local economy, therefore their existence does not necessarily mean low-cost mitigation potential. Given the efficiency and structural characteristics of China's electricity sector, it is pointed out that some other mitigation options, such as demand side management, IGCC and renewable energy as well as the break-through of CCS technology may play an even more important role in emission reduction. Considering the significant lock-in effects in electricity sector, it is warned that China, if continues putting majority investment in large and advanced coal-fired generating units, will face another round of chasing-after for the new and advanced renewable generation technologies. Therefore China should put more efforts in renewable generation technologies now.

Keywords: Mitigation; potential; Mitigation; cost; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(10)00211-9
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:8:p:4209-4213

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().