Economic and climate impacts of reducing China's renewable electricity curtailment: A comparison between CGE models with alternative nesting structures of electricity

To mitigate climate change impacts and achieve low-carbon transformation, China has accelerated the development of renewable energy, which is severely challenged by the curtailment of renewable electricity. This study uses a dynamic multi-sectoral CGE model with alternative nesting structures and substitution elasticities for electricity with different power sources to capture the economic and environmental feasibility of reducing renewable electricity curtailment across all economic sectors in China. The reduction of renewable electricity curtailment is simulated during 2021–2030 from the curtailment rates of 2015–2017. We found that the reduction of renewable electricity curtailment would lead to a significant expansion in the output of renewable electricity and a moderate decrease in non-renewable electricity production. Among the renewable electricity, wind power has the most significant output gain (over 9%), with solar power and hydropower outputs rising by over 5% and 1.5%, respectively. However, without the cost-neutrality assumption, the impacts of reducing electricity curtailment would be largely over-estimated with CGE models simulated by improved technology. The disparity between results from the models with alternative nesting constant elasticity of substitution (CES) functions for electricity sectors is highly dependent on the difference between their substitution elasticities. Accompanying the changes in electricity generation, the reduction of renewable electricity curtailment would bring multiple green co-benefits like significantly reducing CO2 and air pollutants emitted from electricity sectors, and improvements in real GDP and employment.