A multi-regional energy transport and structure model for China’s electricity system

Abstract

The imbalance between the distribution of coal resources and electricity demand makes the transport of energy a significant challenge for China's electricity system. Moreover, with China's air pollution control policies, more clean energy resources will be used to generate electricity, which will change regional power generation structures and influence the energy transport among regions. In this paper, a multi-regional model is developed to optimize the long-term generation and transmission structure of China's electricity system by minimizing the accumulative system cost and considering regional resource endowments and air pollution control polices in four key areas. Results indicate that 1) the share of power generation from clean energy will increase from 24% in 2015 to 62% in 2050, 2) the structure of power generation in each region will be influenced by local water resource availability, and the total CO 2 emission will be reduced by around 16% in 2030 owing to the air pollution control policies, and 3) by 2050, coal will be mainly transported from the North to the Central, the South, the East and the Northeast, while the electricity will be transmitted to the Central, the South and the East from the Northwest, the North, the Southwest and the Central.

Transforming the coal and steel nexus for China's eco‐civilization: Interplay between rail and energy infrastructure

“…Future growth of power generation capacity is based on the HREP scenario. The scaling of future growth of power lines from projected transmission capacity relies on the OLS regression of project information in Table S1‐6 in Supporting Information S1 ( n = 5) (Wei et al., 2018; Y. Zhang, Ma, & Guo, 2018). According to the vision of the MLRN plan, we assume that the total length of railways will be stable between 2030 and 2050.…”

The future of coal supply in China based on non-fossil energy development and carbon price strategies

“…MESSAGE (Model for Energy Supply Systems And their General Environmental Impact) provides a bottom-up model framework for users to describe the processes and relations defined in their energy systems. It is now wildly used for energy system planning and policy analysis [34,37,41]. With detailed technology options, the target of this model is to find the least-cost technology portfolio that satisfies the given demand.…”

“…For these technologies, cost and lifetime parameters are collected from related studies [34,36] and the Center for Renewable Energy Development [85]. The efficiency of biomass power generation [85] and natural gas-fired power generation [86] is assumed to increase considering the technical progress.…”

“…Many studies focus on power system optimization to estimate future power generation structure. Zhang et al adopted the MESSAGE model to optimize China's power system considering coal resource constraints and coal transportation [34]. Other power optimization models also include the development trend of coal-power generation technologies [35,36].…”

The role of hydro power, storage and transmission in the decarbonization of the Chinese power system

“…In the Chinese power sector context, there have been numerous studies on its future transformations, from various perspectives. Multi-region planning models have looked into the chronological transition of the supply side based on today's composition and policy targets, and consequently the transmission infrastructure needed [1][2][3][4][5]. Ref.…”