Volume 4: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part III

Electricity Flow of Present and the Future in China: A Provincial Perspective Qiang Zhang, Wenying Chen*

Abstract

Considering the vital role of electricity in the energy consumption and electricity transportation being a bottleneck of high proportion renewable energy development in China, this paper assessed the current and future flow from a provincial perspective. According to the electricity flow in 2015, we found that most provinces mainly relied on local electricity power supply, while there was massive curtailment of the utilization of wind and solar power in some provinces due to the lack of electricity transportation capacity. From the perspective of provincial China-TIMES model in reference scenario, the southern and eastern provinces with large population or GDP will need to import electricity from northern and western provinces with high proportion integration of renewable energy. In the case study of Inner Mongolia and Henan in low carbon scenarios, the demand for electricity output capacity of Inner Mongolia is increasing and further optimization of the national electricity transportation capacity is needed as the increase in electricity flow.

Keywords electricity flow; renewable energy; China; Provincial; China-TIMES