Great Britain's power system with a high penetration of renewable energy: Dataset supporting future scenarios

The share of variable renewable energy (VRE) is forecasted to increase in the energy sector to meet decarbonization targets and/or reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. The modeling of future power system scenarios is crucial to assess the role of different flexibility options, including low-carbon technologies. The data presented here support the research article "The role of energy storage in Great Britain's future power system: focus on hydrogen and biomass". These data include updated parameters, inputs, equations, biomass resource potential and biomass demand to balance bio-power and bio-hydrogen requirements. The Future Renewable Energy Performance into the Power System Model (FEPPS), a rule-based model that includes flexibility and stability constraints, has been used, and the hourly results of future scenarios by 2030 and 2040 are provided. Researchers, policymakers, and investors could use this paper as these data provide insights into the role of different technologies (including hydrogen and biomass) in power generation, system flexibility, decarbonization and costs.

Research characteristics and trends of power sector carbon emissions: a bibliometric analysis from various perspectives

Power sector carbon emissions (PSCEs) have received an increasing attention due to their huge contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. Herein, the research characteristics and trends of PSCEs are investigated based on bibliometric analysis. The basic growth trends, contributions of the most productive countries/territories, institutions, authors, journals, and subject categories are analyzed systematically. In addition, the major research fields and research trends are investigated by the keywords co-occurrence analysis and topic evolution. The result indicates that PSCEs research has developed rapidly in the past 20 years, and the proportion of research funding has increased from 0 at the beginning to 73% in the last 5 years. Especially, the number of scientific publications has shown an explosive growth after the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2016. The People's Republic of China (PR China), the USA, and England are the three most dynamic countries in the field of PSCEs research, with 64.8% of the total number of published papers. The most productive institutions are also from these countries. Based on keywords co-occurrence analysis, it is concluded that driving factors, prediction, impacts, and countermeasures of carbon emission are three major research fields. The result of thematic evolution indicates that the topics on energy transition, life cycle assessment, marginal abatement cost and energy policy have been the research hotspots in recent years. This study presents an worldwide overview of PSCEs research, thus helping the stakeholders to quickly grasp the research trends and conduct future work.

Land use requirements for the power sector considering renewable energy development and water consumption in China

In 2020, China pledged to peak its carbon emission before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. These ambitious carbon targets will inevitably boost the development of renewable energy generation, which has advantages from energy and water perspectives but disadvantages from land use perspective. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss the interaction among renewable energy development, water consumption as well as land use in the power sector, and determine a reasonable power-related land use range for the land administration in China. In this research, a series of multi-period, multi-regional power system optimization models with different objective functions and constraints are established to study the interrelationship among renewable energy development, water consumption, and land use in the coverage area of China Southern Power Grid from 2018 to 2030, and provide a reasonable land use range for the power sector in this region in 2030. Based on the above calculation results, the development of renewable energy promoted by energy and water policies will increase the land use of power sector under a cost objective function, and the minimum land area demand for this power system in 2030 considering energy and water policies is 24785.14 km². What is more, according to the influence of land use constraint on the total cost of power sector from 2018 to 2030, this paper selected the increase ratio from 5 to 16% compared with the minimum land area demand as the reasonable land use range.

China's investments in renewable energy through the belt and road initiative stimulated local economy and employment: A case study of Pakistan

Since China's announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2015, much focus has been drawn on the environmental impacts of China's energy investments in the countries along the BRI. The economic and social impacts of these investments, which are also important for the wellbeing for local people, left largely uninvestigated. In this paper, we used China's renewable energy investments in Pakistan as a case study to investigate the contributions of these investments on local economy and employment. Through IO table analysis, we found that the 28 renewable power plant projects invested by China till now potentially provided 8905 jobs and generated around USD 39.8 million production values in related sectors in Pakistan, including USD 30.7 million from wind power plants development and 9.1 million from solar. When Chinese companies act as engineers and constructors, the increase of production value in relevant sectors in Pakistan (USD 6.05 million per 100 MW) are higher than wind power plant projects with other magnitude of engagement (3.82 million as a fully sponsor, 4.19 million as only finance supporter and 2.29 as equipment provider). Wind power plants will create more jobs and increase more production values than solar power plants. This study identifies the economic and social benefits of BRI renewable energy investments from China and the driving mechanism, thus providing basis for promoting renewable energy investments in countries like Pakistan so that they can gain new drive for social and economic growth from the global trend of low carbon transition.

Impact analysis of COVID-19 pandemic on the future green power sector: A case study in the Netherlands

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes to the power sector. This study proposes general and coherent methodological steps to explore the future impact of lockdown measures on the power sector. In a case study from the Netherlands, two lockdown levels were defined and simulated to identify the influence of the pandemic upon the sector. Moreover, four renewable scenarios were developed to represent the green transition of the Netherlands' power sector up to 2035. For this future power sector, the results show that the green transition can achieve a reduction of 65% in CO₂ emissions and 20% in power sector cost. Under the implementation of a simulated lockdown level, electricity demand decreased by 6.3% under Level 1 and 11.9% under Level 2 in 2035. The influences of lockdowns on future power sectors differ with respect to scenario. In addition, Lockdown Level 1 leads to a reduction of 8-12% in emissions and a reduction of 6-8% in cost, and Lockdown Level 2 expands this reduction to 15-21% in emissions and 11-13% in cost. The findings of this exploratory study can elucidate what may happen in the future green power sector if such event arises.

Decomposition and decoupling research of Chinese power sector carbon emissions through the consumption accounting principle

The Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) model is applied to study Chinese national and regional power sector carbon emission changes through consumption side from 2003 to 2017, and regional power sector carbon emissions are estimated through the production and consumption accounting principle. The two-factor ANOVA and one-factor ANOVA are used to compare the differences of regional power sector carbon emissions through the two principles. In addition, the Tapio decoupling analysis model is used to investigate the decoupling state between carbon emissions of power sector and the corresponding driving forces through the consumption side. There are several results: (1) Through the two different principles, regional power sector carbon emissions are statistically significant, yet national power sector carbon emissions are not statistically significant; (2) the main factors contributing to the power sector carbon emission growth are economic scale effect and income level effect, and the main restraining factors are electricity consumption carbon intensity effect and production sector electricity intensity effect; (3) the highest contribution effect to the decoupling indexes between various influencing factors and power sector carbon emissions was scale effect, and technical effect had the second largest contribution value; (4) in 2003-2017, economic scale effect was the first significant factor causing the difference of regional power sector carbon emissions, followed by production sector electricity intensity effect and electricity consumption carbon intensity through the regional decomposition analysis. Finally, this paper gives some targeted suggestions for the low-carbon development of the power sector through national and regional perspectives.

Copper at the crossroads: Assessment of the interactions between low-carbon energy transition and supply limitations

This article aims to assess the impact of copper availability on the energy transition and to determine whether copper could become critical due to the high copper content of low-carbon technologies compared to conventional technologies. In assessing copper availability through to 2050, we rely on our linear programming world energy-transport model, TIAM-IFPEN. We examine two climate scenarios (2 °C and 4 °C) with two mobility shape, implemented with a recycling chain. The penetration of low-carbon technologies in the transport and energy sectors (electric vehicles and low-carbon power generation technologies) is likely to significantly increase copper demand by 2050. To investigate how tension over copper resources can be reduced in the energy transition context, we consider two public policy drivers: sustainable mobility and recycling practices. Results show that in the most stringent scenario, the cumulative primary copper demand between 2010 and 2050 is found to be 89.4% of the copper resources known in 2010. They also pinpoint the importance of China and Chile in the future evolution of the copper market.

Co-current analysis among electricity-water-carbon for the power sector in China

China's power sector consumes large amounts of water for its cooling every year, which has increased water stress in many regions and caused the vulnerability in electricity generation. Current plans for power sector mainly focus on the clean and low-carbon development, while it is unclear how to reconcile CO₂-reduction target with water-saving target. In this paper, an optimization model named NET-Power (National Energy Technology-Power) is developed to simulate the deployment of power generation technologies, and to further answer whether there is a conflict or not between water-saving target and CO₂-reduction target in the power sector. The result shows that peaking carbon emissions before 2030 in the power sector may increase the water consumption by 34.85Gt. In addition, to further meeting the water constraint on the basis of peaking carbon emissions would lead to a higher carbon intensity of thermal power. These findings indicate that low-carbon transition will cause significant water-carbon contradiction, which mainly lies in nuclear power technology and dry-cooling technology. Finally, the optimal technology layout path that can meet the dual constraints of water and carbon for the power sector in China is proposed.

China's power transition under the global 1.5 °C target: preliminary feasibility study and prospect

Based on the 1.5 °C temperature control target of the Paris Agreement, the two scenarios in this paper which are 1.5 degree scenario (1.5DS) and 2 degree scenario (2DS) aim to analyze the CO₂ emission space and power transition path constrains of the power sector in China. This paper then discusses the possible scenarios of 1.5DS and 2DS power planning schemes in 2050. The conclusions are as follows: (1) China's electricity consumption saturation period will occur during the period of 2030-2040; (2) Driven by technology learning, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of wind power will have obvious competitive advantages in 2020 and so does solar power in 2030. However, due to the impact of additional grid connection costs of new energy power, economic advantages can only be obtained in the power market after at least 10 years; (3) The installed capacity of coal power in 1.5DS and 2DS will peak in 2020, and CO₂ emissions will also peak in 2020, then it shows a trend of decreasing year by year. However, it should be noted that 1.5DS is with possibilities, but with enormous challenges as the same time; (4) Accelerating the green and low carbon transition of power sector must be gradually improving the power market and electricity price mechanism, providing a good transition environment for the power sector, developing emerging power technology, and promoting multi-energy complementary systems.

Feasibility of peaking carbon emissions of the power sector in China's eight regions: decomposition, decoupling, and prediction analysis

Carbon emissions in the power sector are an important part of China's total carbon emissions and have a significant impact on whether China can achieve the 2030 carbon peak target. Based on the three perspectives of decomposition, decoupling, and prediction, this paper studies the feasibility of carbon emission peaks in eight major regional power sectors in China. First, the generalized Divisia index model (GDIM) is used to decompose the carbon emissions of the eight regional power sectors, and the driving factors and their effects on carbon emissions in the power sector of each region are compared. Then, the decoupling index based on the generalized Divisia index model (GDIM-D) is used to study the decoupling relationship between the carbon emissions of the eight regional power sectors and economic growth. Finally, the carbon emissions and decoupling indices of the power sector from 2017 to 2030 are predicted. The results show the following. First, the gross domestic product (GDP) and output scale are the main factors contributing to the carbon emissions of the eight regional power sectors. The carbon intensity of the power sector in GDP (C/G) and output carbon intensity(C/E) are the main factors that contribute to the reduction. Second, the carbon emissions of the southern coast, the middle Yellow River, and the Southwest peaked in 2013 and have been decoupled from economic growth, while those in the other regions have not peaked or decoupled. Third, if the carbon emissions of the power sector in the Northeast, northern coast, eastern coast, middle Yangtze River, and Northwest reach a peak in 2030, they will face many emission reduction pressures. This paper provides a reference for studying the carbon emissions of China's regional power sectors and their relationship with economic growth and has important implications for peak carbon emissions at the national level.