IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-19854-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the trade-offs between electric heating policy and carbon mitigation in China

Author

Listed:
  • Jianxiao Wang

    (Tsinghua University
    North China Electric Power University)

  • Haiwang Zhong

    (Tsinghua University)

  • Zhifang Yang

    (Chongqing University)

  • Mu Wang

    (Tsinghua University)

  • Daniel M. Kammen

    (University of California)

  • Zhu Liu

    (Tsinghua University)

  • Ziming Ma

    (Tsinghua University)

  • Qing Xia

    (Tsinghua University)

  • Chongqing Kang

    (Tsinghua University)

Abstract

China has enacted a series of policies since 2015 to substitute electricity for in-home combustion for rural residential heating. The Electric Heating Policy (EHP) has contributed to significant improvements in air quality, benefiting hundreds of millions of people. This shift, however, has resulted in a sharp increase in electric loads and associated carbon emissions. Here, we show that China’s EHP will greatly increase carbon emissions. We develop a theoretical model to quantify the carbon emissions from power generation and rural residential heating sectors. We found that in 2015, an additional 101.69–162.89 megatons of CO2 could potentially be emitted if EHP was implemented in 45–55% of rural residents in Northern China. In 2020, the incremental carbon emission is expected to reach 130.03–197.87 megatons. Fortunately, the growth of carbon emission will slow down due to China’s urbanization progress. In 2030, the carbon emission increase induced by EHP will drop to 119.19–177.47 megatons. Finally, we conclude two kinds of practical pathways toward low-carbon electric heating, and provide techno-economic analyses.

Suggested Citation

  • Jianxiao Wang & Haiwang Zhong & Zhifang Yang & Mu Wang & Daniel M. Kammen & Zhu Liu & Ziming Ma & Qing Xia & Chongqing Kang, 2020. "Exploring the trade-offs between electric heating policy and carbon mitigation in China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19854-y
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19854-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19854-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-19854-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiang, Sufan & Gao, Shan & Pan, Guangsheng & Liu, Yu & Wu, Chuanshen & Wang, Sicheng, 2021. "Congestion-aware robust security constrained unit commitment model for AC-DC grids," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    2. Ding, Tao & Sun, Yuge & Huang, Can & Mu, Chenlu & Fan, Yuqi & Lin, Jiang & Qin, Yining, 2022. "Pathways of clean energy heating electrification programs for reducing carbon emissions in Northwest China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    3. Jan Rosenow & Duncan Gibb & Thomas Nowak & Richard Lowes, 2022. "Heating up the global heat pump market," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 7(10), pages 901-904, October.
    4. Yan, Ran & Ma, Minda & Zhou, Nan & Feng, Wei & Xiang, Xiwang & Mao, Chao, 2023. "Towards COP27: Decarbonization patterns of residential building in China and India," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 352(C).
    5. Wang, Jianxiao & An, Qi & Zhao, Yue & Pan, Guangsheng & Song, Jie & Hu, Qinran & Tan, Chin-Woo, 2023. "Role of electrolytic hydrogen in smart city decarbonization in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    6. Wang, Kang & Wang, Haixin & Yang, Zihao & Feng, Jiawei & Li, Yanzhen & Yang, Junyou & Chen, Zhe, 2023. "A transfer learning method for electric vehicles charging strategy based on deep reinforcement learning," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 343(C).
    7. Yang, Tianqi & Shu, Yun & Zhang, Shaohui & Wang, Hongchang & Zhu, Jinwei & Wang, Fan, 2023. "Impacts of end-use electrification on air quality and CO2 emissions in China's northern cities in 2030," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(PA).
    8. Bo Wei & Wenfei Liu & Chong Shao & Yong Yang & Yanbing Su & Zhaoyuan Wu, 2023. "Energy Storage Sharing for Multiple Services Provision: A Computable Combinatorial Auction Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-19, August.
    9. Guangsheng Pan & Qinran Hu & Wei Gu & Shixing Ding & Haifeng Qiu & Yuping Lu, 2021. "Assessment of plum rain’s impact on power system emissions in Yangtze-Huaihe River basin of China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    10. Xiaoyang Hou & Shuai Zhong & Jian’an Zhao, 2022. "A Critical Review on Decarbonizing Heating in China: Pathway Exploration for Technology with Multi-Sector Applications," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-23, February.
    11. Ma, Sining & Guo, Siyue & Zheng, Dingqian & Chang, Shiyan & Zhang, Xiliang, 2021. "Roadmap towards clean and low carbon heating to 2035: A provincial analysis in northern China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    12. Lu, Shilei & Lin, Quanyi & Xu, Bowen & Yue, Lu & Feng, Wei, 2023. "Thermodynamic performance of cascaded latent heat storage systems for building heating," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    13. Yang Liu & Congrui Zhang & Yingying Huang & Zhixiong Xiao & Yaxuan Han & Gaofeng Ren, 2021. "Climate Impact of China’s Promotion of the Filling Mining Method: Bottom-Up Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Underground Metal Mines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-17, June.
    14. Jianxiao Wang & Liudong Chen & Zhenfei Tan & Ershun Du & Nian Liu & Jing Ma & Mingyang Sun & Canbing Li & Jie Song & Xi Lu & Chin-Woo Tan & Guannan He, 2023. "Inherent spatiotemporal uncertainty of renewable power in China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19854-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.