Diversifying heat sources in China’s urban district heating systems will reduce risk of carbon lock-in
Shangwei Liu,
Yang Guo,
Fabian Wagner,
Hongxun Liu,
Ryna Yiyun Cui and
Denise L. Mauzerall ()
Additional contact information
Shangwei Liu: Princeton University
Yang Guo: Princeton University
Fabian Wagner: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Hongxun Liu: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Ryna Yiyun Cui: University of Maryland
Denise L. Mauzerall: Princeton University
Nature Energy, 2024, vol. 9, issue 8, 1021-1031
Abstract:
Abstract China’s clean heating policy since 2017 has notably improved air quality. However, the share of non-fossil sources in China’s urban district heating systems remain low, and many new coal-fired combined heat and power plants are being built. Strategic choices for district heating technologies are necessary for China to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Here we find that replacing polluting coal technologies with new and improved coal-fired combined heat and power plants will lead to substantial carbon lock-in and hinder decommissioning of associated coal-fired electricity generation. Expanding the use of industrial waste heat and air/ground-source heat pumps can avoid the need for new combined heat and power construction and reduce carbon emissions by 26% from 2020 to 2030. Our findings indicate the importance of the government’s recent proposals to decarbonize district heating.
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01560-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
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:nat:natene:v:9:y:2024:i:8:d:10.1038_s41560-024-01560-4
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nenergy/
DOI: 10.1038/s41560-024-01560-4
Access Statistics for this article
Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan
More articles in Nature Energy from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().