Potential for Electric Vehicle Adoption to Mitigate Extreme Air Quality Events in China

Abstract

Electric vehicle (EV) adoption promises potential air pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction co‐benefits. As such, China has aggressively incentivized EV adoption, however much remains unknown with regard to EVs’ mitigation potential, including optimal vehicle type prioritization, power generation contingencies, effects of Clean Air regulations, and the ability of EVs to reduce acute impacts of extreme air quality events. Here, we present a suite of scenarios with a chemistry transport model that assess the potential co‐benefits of EVs during an extreme winter air quality event. We find that regardless of power generation source, heavy‐duty vehicle (HDV) electrification consistently improves air quality in terms of NO2 and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), potentially avoiding 562 deaths due to acute pollutant exposure during the infamous January 2013 pollution episode (∼1% of total premature mortality). However, HDV electrification does not reduce GHG emissions without enhanced emission‐free electricity generation. In contrast, due to differing emission profiles, light‐duty vehicle (LDV) electrification in China consistently reduces GHG emissions (∼2 Mt CO2), but results in fewer air quality and human health improvements (145 avoided deaths). The calculated economic impacts for human health endpoints and CO2 reductions for LDV electrification are nearly double those of HDV electrification in present‐day (155M vs. 87M US$), but are within ∼25% when enhanced emission‐free generation is used to power them. Overall, we find only a modest benefit for EVs to ameliorate severe wintertime pollution events, and that continued emission reductions in the power generation sector will have the greatest human health and economic benefits.

Changes of Atmospheric CO2 in the Tibetan Plateau From 1994 to 2019

“…China has already implemented various strategies, including the 11th Five Year Plan (2006–2010) as well as a number of pollution reduction and energy conservation measures since the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, such as improving coal combustion efficiency, shutting down factories, and developing new fuels (Schnell et al., 2021; Zhao et al., 2013). However, the atmospheric CO 2 has been continuously increasing in recent decades (Dayalu et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2015).…”

Alternative-energy-vehicles deployment delivers climate, air quality, and health co-benefits when coupled with decarbonizing power generation in China

“…To address the urgency of climate change and explore the potential of further improving air quality via AEV deployment, our study considered a variety of decarbonization levels for electricity generation and includes more AEV types than Liang et al 11 or Schnell et al 16 Liang et al 11 estimated the air quality and health benefits of projected electric passenger vehicle penetration in 2030, given current policies, and found 17,456 (95% CI: 10,656-22,160) avoided annual premature deaths nationally due to reduced PM 2.5 and O 3 concentrations in China. We find that in our scenarios the avoided premature deaths due to an expansion of the AEV fleet including EVs, EMCs, HFCVs, and NGVs powered with over 90% decarbonized electricity could be as large as $329,000 persons (95% CI: 254,200-383,100).…”

“…We find that in our scenarios the avoided premature deaths due to an expansion of the AEV fleet including EVs, EMCs, HFCVs, and NGVs powered with over 90% decarbonized electricity could be as large as $329,000 persons (95% CI: 254,200-383,100). Schnell et al 16 found that the deployment of passenger and LDT EVs ameliorate several wintertime air pollution episodes, bring health benefits, and reduce CO 2 emissions when the marginal electricity generation is 50% emission-free. However, summer O 3 pollution is also detrimental to human health.…”

“…Additional studies [13][14][15] estimate the life-cycle emissions from HFCVs. Schnell et al 16 illustrate that the potential of electric vehicles (EVs) to ameliorate extreme air pollution events in winter is limited and that the air quality and climate co-benefits of EVs depend on the emissions from power generation. Most previous studies focus on target years 2025 or 2030, which does not allow time to deeply decarbonize the power sector and hydrogen supply.…”

Air quality and health implications of electrifying heavy-duty vehicles assessed at equity-relevant neighborhood-scales.

“…S1 ( 60)). We estimate the increase in energy demand at EGUs by modeling the U.S. energy grid using an augmented version of the energy dispatch algorithm employed by (30,61). Emission changes at EGUs are computed at the CONUS level from which the changes occurring at EGUs within our study domain are selected.…”