 The substitution of wind power for coal-fired power to realize China's CO2 emissions reduction targets in 2020 and 2030Xiaoli Zhao, Qiong Cai, Sufang Zhang and Kaiyan Luo Energy, 2017, vol. 120, issue C, 164-178 Abstract: China's power industry contributes around 40% CO2 emissions to the national total. The substitution of wind power for coal-fired power is crucial to the realization of CO2 emission reduction target in China. By deploying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method, this paper identifies that the carbon footprints of a representative coal fired plant and a wind farm in China are 810.35 g/kWh and 12.51 g/kWh respectively. Built on these results, the substitution capacities of wind power for coal-fired power to realize the CO2 emission reduction target in 2020 and 2030 are discussed. It is concluded that China's wind power needs to develop faster than the goal set in the 12th Five Year Renewable Energy Development Plan for achieving the target of 45% emission reduction in 2020. Moreover, the feasibility of the substitution of wind power for coal-fired power is analyzed. It is argued that whilst China has great potential to realize such substitution given its rich wind resources, the full realization of the substitution requires some radical reforms in the power sector in the country. Keywords: Wind power; Carbon footprint; CO2 emission reduction target; Coal-fired power; China (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:120:y:2017:i:c:p:164-178 DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.12.109 Access Statistics for this article Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser More articles in Energy from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.