The Health and Climate Benefits of Economic Dispatch in China’s Power System

Luo, Qian; Garcia–Menendez, Fernando; Yang, Haozhe; Deshmukh, Ranjit; He, Gang; Lin, Jiang; Johnson, Jeremiah X.

doi:10.1021/acs.est.2c05663

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…We used the GridPath model, an open-source power system model, to optimize the total investment and operation costs of electricity infrastructure (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydropower, solar, wind, storage and transmission) in China from 2020 to 2040 [15,22,23]. We chose 2040 as our end-year because it is near enough to limit uncertainty in technology cost trajectories and far enough to develop meaningful pathways for policy-making.…”

Section: Electricity Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Yang,

Luo,

et al. 2024

Environ. Res.: Energy

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Understanding the costs and the spatial distribution of health and employment outcomes of low-carbon electricity pathways is critical to enable an equitable transition. We integrate an electricity system planning model (GridPath), a health impact model (InMAP), and a multiregional input-output model to quantify China’s provincial-level impacts of electricity system decarbonization on costs, health outcomes, employment, and labor compensation. We find that even without specific CO2 constraints, declining renewable energy and storage costs enable a 26% decline in CO2 emissions in 2040 compared to 2020 under the Reference scenario. Compared to the Reference scenario, pursuing 2ºC and 1.5ºC compatible carbon emission targets (85% and 99% decrease in 2040 CO2 emissions relative to 2020 levels, respectively) reduces air pollution-related premature deaths from electricity generation over 2020-2040 by 51% and 63%, but substantially increases annual average costs per unit of electricity demand in 2040 (21% and 39%, respectively). While the 2ºC pathway leads to a 3% increase in electricity sector-related net labor compensation, the 1.5ºC pathway results in a 19% increase in labor compensation driven by greater renewable energy deployment. Although disparities in health impacts across provinces narrow as fossil fuels phase out, disparities in labor compensation widen with wealthier East Coast provinces gaining the most in labor compensation because of materials and equipment manufacturing, and offshore wind deployment.

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Section: Electricity Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Yang,

Luo,

et al. 2024

Environ. Res.: Energy

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“…where VSL is the value of a statistical life in China ($1.3 million 2022USD [47]), p is the pollutant considered, and z is the load zone selected. In Luo et al, we found greater values of VSL can further reduce mortalities, but different VSLs estimated for different regions in China do not significantly change the distribution of damages [48]. Therefore, only one VSL is used in this study.…”

Section: Public Health Impactsmentioning

confidence: 88%

Accelerating China’s power sector decarbonization can save lives: integrating public health goals into power sector planning decisions

Luo,

Garcia-Menendez,

Lin

et al. 2023

Environ. Res. Lett.

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China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter in 2022, aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. The power sector will play a major role in this decarbonization process due to its current reliance on coal. Prior studies have quantified air quality co-benefits from decarbonization or investigated pathways to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector. However, few have jointly assessed the potential impacts of accelerating decarbonization on electric power systems and public health. Additionally, most analyses have treated air quality improvements as co-benefits of decarbonization, rather than a target during decarbonization. Here, we explore future energy technology pathways in China under accelerated decarbonization scenarios with a power system planning model that integrates carbon, pollutant, and health impacts. We integrate the health effects of power plant emissions into the power system decision-making process, quantifying the public health impacts of decarbonization under each scenario. We find that compared with a reference decarbonization pathway, a stricter cap (20% lower emissions than the reference pathway in each period) on carbon emissions would yield significant co-benefits to public health, leading to a 22% reduction in power sector health impacts. Although extra capital investment is required to achieve this low emission target, the value of climate and health benefits would exceed the additional costs, leading to $824 billion net benefits from 2021 to 2050. Another accelerated decarbonization pathway that achieves zero emissions five years earlier than the reference case would result in lower net benefits due to higher capital costs during earlier decarbonization periods. Treating air pollution impacts as a target in decarbonization can further mitigate both CO2 emissions and negative health effects. Alternative low-cost solutions also show that small variations in system costs can result in significantly different future energy portfolios, suggesting that diverse decarbonization pathways are viable.

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“…Many previous studies have assessed the air quality, related health benefits, − and economic costs − of raw coal reductions resulting from the strengthening of air pollution control policies. These studies consistently found that the replacement of raw coal with cleaner energy has a significant positive impact on air quality and human health. , However, most of these studies focused on rural residential sectors, such as cooking or residential heating, − and systematic cost–benefit evaluation frameworks as well as empirical research on SCB upgrading are still lacking due to data deficiencies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing Inter-regional Environmental Inequities Hidden in China’s Energy Transition

Zhao

Jiancheng

Wei

et al. 2023

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Energy transition is an important way to control air pollution, but it may conflict with the economic goal of alleviating regional inequality due to its inherently different cost burdens. As one of the effective measures of energy transition, this paper takes small coal-fired boiler (SCB) upgrading as an example to explore the regional mismatch between upgrading costs and health benefits. Here, we construct a boiler-level inventory of SCB upgrades for the North China Plain (NCP) during 2013−2017 and propose an integrated modeling framework to quantify the spatial contribution of economic costs and health benefits associated with SCB upgrading. We find that although the total health benefits could offset the total costs for the entire region, the developed municipalities (Beijing and Tianjin) are likely to gain more health benefits from less-developed neighboring provinces at lower costs. These developed municipalities contribute only 14% to the total health benefits but gain 21% of the benefits within their territories, 56% of which come from neighboring provinces. Their benefits are approximately 5.6 times their costs, which is much higher than the 1.5 benefit−cost ratio in neighboring provinces. Our findings may be useful in shaping more equitable and sound environmental policies in China or other regions of the world with serious coal-related air pollution.

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The Health and Climate Benefits of Economic Dispatch in China’s Power System

Cited by 7 publications

References 37 publications

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Regional disparities in health and employment outcomes of China’s transition to a low-carbon electricity system

Accelerating China’s power sector decarbonization can save lives: integrating public health goals into power sector planning decisions

Revealing Inter-regional Environmental Inequities Hidden in China’s Energy Transition

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