Energy Transition in the Power Sector in China: State of Affairs in 2016
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Energy Transition in the Power Sector in China: State of Affairs in 2016 Review on the Developments in 2016 and an Outlook ANALYSIS * * RES-Share on power consumption Energy Transition in the Power Sector in China: State of Affairs in 2016 IMPRINT ANALYSIS MANY THANKS TO: Energy Transition in the Power Sector in China: Sandra Retzer and Xinnan Wang (GIZ) State of Affairs in 2016 Review on the Developments in 2016 and an Outlook COMMISSIONED BY: China National Renewable Energy Centre Room B2204-2209 Guohong Mansion Mu xidi Beili, Jia No. 11 Xicheng District | Beijing 100038 | China www.cnrec.org.cn Agora Energiewende Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Straße 2 10178 Berlin | Germany www.agora-energiewende.de AUTHORS: Energy Brainpool Brandenburgische Str. 86/87 10713 Berlin | Germany Simon Göß Please cite as: Marie-Louise Niggemeier Energy Brainpool (2017): Energy Transition in the Power Sector in China: State of Affairs in 2016. Review on the Developments in 2016 and an Layout: UKEX GRAPHIC, Germany Urs Karcher Outlook. Analysis on behalf of Agora Energie- Cover image: own illustration wende and China National Renewable Energy Centre. 116/06-A-2017/EN Publication: June 2017 www.agora-energiewende.de Revised version www.cnrec.org.cn Preface Dear readers, Last year, China overtook Germany as the world’s the Paris climate agreement, despite the USA’s recent leader for installed solar capacity. In 2016 alone, volte-face. 34 GW solar PV were installed in China, while Germany merely added a single GW. This is not In this annual review, we provide a more compre- China’s only distinction. China has also started an hensive picture of the latest development of China’s energy transition with its own dynamics and charac- power system. The review focuses on recent data teristics. However, this transition resembles what we regarding the supply and demand of power from have already observed in Germany and Europe. renewable and conventional sources. While it is true that China is still the largest energy Your feedback is more than welcome. We hope you consumer and emitter of greenhouse gases, its rapid enjoy reading this review. surge of coal-fired power plants has slowed, and the increase in emissions has come to a halt. Further- Wang Zhongying more, the government has begun a rapid expansion China National Renewable Energy Centre of renewable energy. In the diplomatic arena, the Patrick Graichen Chinese government has reiterated its commitment to Director Agora Energiewende Key findings Total electricity generation increased by five per cent in 2016, or by about 300 TWh.At 65 per cent, 1 coal provides the largest share of total generated electricity. Renewables account for 25 per cent. Consumption increased by 283 TWh, comparable to the entire consumption of Spain. However, there is a clear trend towards renewable energy. Since 2010, the share of renewables in 2 the power mix has increased by 8 percentage points, while coal has decreased by 11 percentage points. Curtailment of renewable energy is high, averaging 17 per cent. Some provinces, like Gansu and 3 Xinjiang, plan to slow down wind capacity expansion in the coming years. Furthermore, the government is encouraging expansion of the transmission grid. Use of conventional power plants is decreasing. Full load hours for coal plants decreased from more than 5,000 hours in 2013 to 4,165 hours in 2016, and energy-related emissions have stagnated at 4 2013 levels. However, the government is reviewing its plans for new coal plants, and another 200 GW of coal-fired power plants are under construction and are expected to go online by 2020. 3 Content Data and Methodology 5 1. Power generation 6 2. Power consumption 9 3. Development of renewable energy 11 4. Development of conventional energy 17 5. Outlook 20 References 21 4 ANALYSIS | Energy Transition in the Power Sector in China: State of Affairs in 2016 Data and Methodology Compiling an annual review within the first half of a following year always comes with certain obsta- cles – this is true for Germany, Europe and even more so globally. Reliable and recent data sources are sometimes hard to find, and even if reliable sources exist, some compromises regarding completeness of data have to be made. For this review, we have asked Energy Brainpool to compile the most appropriate data to provide a comprehensive and consistent pic- ture of the Chinese power system in 2016. If not indicated otherwise, data are sourced from the annual electricity statistics provided by the China Electricity Council. Many of the data sources used in this report are Chinese language policy documents or statistics. They have been sourced from China Energy Portal, a website that collects Chinese policy docu- ments, news, and statistics, and offers [partial] trans- lations of these.1 Over the years the annual electric- ity statistics (2009-2016) changed slightly in their composition and degree of detail. English translations of the annual electricity statistics can be found on the China Energy Portal.2 Furthermore, no detailed or consistent information on capacities and generation by oil, geothermal, waste, biomass, offshore wind and concentrated solar power are available. Generation denoted as “other” is not defined in the data source. In this report, it denotes energy generation from oil, geothermal, waste and biomass. Whenever an exchange rate is used for conversion from Chinese Yuan to Euro we refer to the exchange rate of April 3, 2017 of 1 CNY = 0.136108 EUR. 1 chinaenergyportal.org/en/ 2 chinaenergyportal.org/en/2010-detailed-electricity- statistics/ 5 Agora Energiewende | Energy Transition in the Power Sector in China: State of Affairs in 2016 1. Power generation In 2016, Chinese power generation increased by more energy (excluding biomass)3 grew by 8 percentage than 5 per cent, or 296 terawatt hours, compared to points, from 17 to 25 per cent, while coal-fired gener- 2015, reaching a total of 5,990 terawatt hours (Euro- ation declined 11 percentage points. pean Union: 3,211 terawatt hours). In 2016, the bulk of Chinese electricity was produced by thermal power In 2016, the share of renewable energy in power gen- plants, mainly coal, which accounted for 65 per cent eration amounted to 24.8 per cent, or 1,488 terawatt (or 3,906 terawatt hours) of the country’s total power generation. 3 In general, renewable energy includes: hydro (run-of river and pumped storage), wind (onshore and offshore), This is an increase of more than 40 per cent, or 1,761 PV and biomass. However, detailed data are not available for onshore and offshore wind. Also, no data are available terawatt hours, compared to 2010. Of this total, fossil on concentrated solar power. Therefore, data on hydro fuel power plants generated an additional 870 ter- in this report contains both run-of-river and pumped awatt hours (mainly coal, with 680 terawatt hours). hydro, data on wind includes onshore, and probably off- Wind contributed 190 terawatt hours of the addi- shore, and data on solar only includes PV. Data on power tional electricity, solar PV 66 terawatt hours, nuclear from biomass are not consistent. Therefore, no separate biomass statistics are considered in this report. Along 140 terawatt hours, and hydro power almost another with oil, geothermal, and waste, biomass is considered 500 terawatt hours. In relative shares, renewable as “other” generation in this report. Biomass is also not considered in the capacity data in this report. Biomass capacity stood at about 15 GW at the end of 2016. Power generation mix in China 2010 and 2016: while the share of coal is declining, the share of renewables is increasing. Figure 1 Generation in 2010: 4,230 TWh + 40 % Generation in 2016: 5,990 TWh Gas Other Gas 3 % 3 % 2 % Other Nuclear 3 % 4 % Nuclear 2 % Hydro Hydro Coal Renewables Coal Renewables 20 % 16 % 76 % 17 % 65 % 25 % Wind power 4 % Wind power Solar power 1 % 1 % “Other” includes biomass, waste incineration, geothermal and oil, due to limited data availability. China Electricity Council 6 ANALYSIS | Energy Transition in the Power Sector in China: State of Affairs in 2016 Annual power generation by energy source in 2010–2016: the share of power generation from renewables is growing faster than total power generation. Figure 2 5,990 6,000 5,690 5,676 5,367 4,981 5,000 4,731 4,228 3,906 4,027 3,854 4,000 3,981 3,713 3,707 3,224 3,000 213 2,000 171 188 133 167 195 112 133 162 1,488 98 116 139 87 1,336 75 110 120 1,243 1,000 109 78 97 1,039 115 85 962 736 743 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Renewables Other Gas Nuclear Coal China Electricity Council hours. To put this into perspective: In Europe, renew- tional generation from all conventional power plants, able energy accounted for 29.6 per cent of total power including nuclear. Electricity production by nuclear generation, and only 23.8 per cent if biomass is power plants grew by 42 terawatt hours compared to excluded.4 2015. Year-over-year, all generating technologies produced more electricity than in the previous year. However, there are stark differences between the individual technologies. In 2015-2016, the lowest increase on a year-over-year basis came from coal-fired gen- eration, which only grew 1.3 per cent, while wind grew by 30 per cent, solar PV by 72 per cent, nuclear by 24 per cent, and gas by 13 per cent. Hence, new generation from wind and solar outstripped new generation from coal- and gas-fired thermal power plants, the latter of which grew by 84 and 73 terawatt hours, respectively.