Explore the vast range of titles available.

The costs for solar photovoltaics, wind, and battery storage have dropped markedly since 2010, however, many recent studies and reports around the world have not adequately captured such dramatic decrease. Those costs are projected to decline further in the near future, bringing new prospects for the widespread penetration of renewables and extensive power-sector decarbonization that previous policy discussions did not fully consider. Here we show if cost trends for renewables continue, 62% of China’s electricity could come from non-fossil sources by 2030 at a cost that is 11% lower than achieved through a business-as-usual approach. Further, China’s power sector could cut half of its 2015 carbon emissions at a cost about 6% lower compared to business-as-usual conditions. The decrease in costs of renewable energy and storage has not been well accounted for in energy modelling, which however will have a large effect on energy system investment and policies. Here the authors incorporated recent decrease in costs of renewable energy and storages to refine the pathways to decarbonize China’s power system by 2030 and show that if such cost trends for renewables continue, more than 60% of China’s electricity could come from non-fossil sources by 2030 at a cost that is about 10% lower than achieved through a business-as-usual approach.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

With the development of the smart grid in China, new opportunities for responsive industrial loads to participate in the provision of ancillary services (AS) will become accessible. This paper summarizes AS in China and analyzes the necessary characteristics and advantages of industrial users to provide AS according to their response mechanism. Cement manufacturing and aluminum smelter processes are selected as two representatives of responsive industrial loads. An agent-based model that includes generation, industrial user, and grid agents is proposed. Using two case studies, we analyze the integrated power management of conventional units and industrial loads in day-ahead and real-time AS scheduling based on real device parameters, price mechanisms and production data. The simulation results indicate that the participation of responsive industrial loads in the provision of AS, in China, can improve the coal consumption rate and the system-wide load factor as well as reduce the total system cost for the provision of AS significantly.

As renewable energy continues to play a larger role in China's electricity grid, obstacles for increasing grid flexibility and reliability need to be addressed. Improved grid flexibility could be achieved by institutional changes, adding flexible supply, improving the reliability and efficiency of the transmission sector, or enhancing demand side flexibility. This dissertation focuses on the potential of demand response (DR) to provide flexibility in times of extreme need in a future with large penetration of renewables. It develops two different DR models that can be used to estimate DR impact for commercial buildings at the building level and at the national level, respectively. Using a national level model, this dissertation characterizes the impact of DR events across the commercial sector to provide flexibility across four netload cases in 2030: hours of high and low netload, and hours of high down and up ramping. I describe the methodology to actuate DR by managing the buildings' HVAC system and explain the expected impact statistics. I find that for a 2030 basecase netload scenario with installed renewable capacity of about 1,200 GW, DR from the commercial sector can decrease peak netload between 7 and 12 GW, saving the system between 7 and 12 billion dollars in deferred capacity expansion. Extending demand response to the highest 1% of netload hours in the year, an average of 3 to 4 GW decrease in needed capacity during those hours is possible. This decrease is equivalent to a 276 to 377 GWh reduction in demand, and additional operation savings of between 21 to 28 million dollars. Calculating the cost and benefits of increasing netload at the lowest hours requires further analysis on the potential generation portfolio in 2030 that is likely to benefit from an increased operational baseload. In addition, DR can provide flexibility to alleviate extreme ramping down and up throughout the year. Actuating DR on the highest 1% ramping hours of the year can provide, on average, between 6 to 11 GW per hour and -14 to -27 GW per hour for the extreme down and up ramping hours of the year.