Renewable Pathways for China – with Michael Davidson and Zhang Zhenhua

Today, we're coming back to the power sector to discuss a new report about the pathways for scaling up renewables as China pursues its policy to peak CO2 emissions by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

The report is entitled Renewable Energy Pathways to Carbon Neutrality in China, and it's the fruit of a collaboration between scholars at Tsinghua School of the Environment, California China Climate Institute at Berkeley Law, Power Transformation Lab hosted at the UCSD. The report was released in May 2023.

Michael Davidson is an assistant professor joint with the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego, where he leads the Power Transformation Lab. Dr. Davidson's teaching and research focus on the engineering implications and institutional conflicts inherent in deploying low-carbon energy at scale to mitigate environmental harms, specializing in applications to China, India, and the U.S.

Zhenhua is a PhD Student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California in San Diego, and he is focusing on power systems modeling, electricity markets, and energy policy issues.

We address:

1. What makes this forecast and model different from others, in terms of methods and also results.
2. What its forecast for renewable capacity and renewable share is, out to 2060.
3. What the relative role for distributed energy is, compared to current trends.
4. What the model assumes for the cost of transmission, and how it models transmission compared to present policy, which considers mainly utilization in considering the costs and benefits of new lines.
5. What the role of power market reform is.
6. What we expect for power outages this summer.

Further reading:

Michael Davidson et al., "Renewable Energy Pathways to Carbon Neutrality in China," Tsinghua School of the Environment, Berkeley Law-California China Climate Institute, Power Transformation Lab, May 2023