Assessment on the Cost Synergies and Impacts among Measures on Energy Conservation, Decarbonization, and Air Pollutant Reductions Using an MCEE Model: A Case of Guangzhou, China

Yunsheng Xie, Peng Wang, Yi Dou, Lei Yang, Songyan Ren and Daiqing Zhao
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Yunsheng Xie: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Peng Wang: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Yi Dou: Platinum Society, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1138656, Japan
Lei Yang: Institute of Energy Research, Jiangxi Academy of Sciences, Nanchang 330096, China
Songyan Ren: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Daiqing Zhao: Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: Many challenges are faced in the process of urban sustainable development, including the continuous growth in energy demand and rapid increase in CO 2 and air pollutant emissions. This study focuses on the costs of measures to address these issues and establishes a multi-objective comprehensive assessment model for energy saving, CO 2 , and pollutant emission (MCEE). Taking Guangzhou as an example, the sustainable development measures are divided into three categories, energy-saving, demand-optimization, and environmental-protection. Five scenarios are set to quantitatively evaluate the costs when these measures are implemented alone or coordinately for the period 2015–2035. Conclusions are as follows: (1) Measures of energy-saving and demand-optimization have the best synergistic effect on energy saving and emission reduction. The synergistic benefits include an 80% and 84% increase in energy savings and CO 2 reductions, respectively, and more than 50% increase in pollutant reductions. (2) Measures of demand-optimization and energy-saving have the best synergistic effect on cost saving, which reduces the unit technical improvement costs of energy saving and CO 2 reduction by 49.5% and 54.9%, respectively, and the unit end-of-pipe costs of four pollutants by 59.15%, 54.43%, 61.15%, and 51.96, respectively. (3) Environmental-protection measures have remarkable synergistic effects in reducing the cost of health loss and labor loss. At the price of a 5% increase in technical improvement cost and 9% in end-of-pipe treatment cost, health loss, labor loss, and total social cost will be reduced by 18%, 19%, and 3%, respectively. The above conclusions provide support for cities of the same type to coordinate various measures, reduce resistance and barriers to their implementation, compensate for the market deficiency of high costs of some measures, and achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Keywords: cost synergies; energy saving; decarbonization; air pollutants reduction; urban sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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