China News Service Chengdu, September 8th (Reporter Wang Peng, Yue Yitong) Carbon dioxide emissions are aimed to reach a peak by 2030, and efforts are made to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. As a major carbon emitter, this is China's commitment to the world. For China, which still relies mainly on coal power, how to carry out energy transformation?

"China needs to build a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system and a new power system dominated by new energy." On September 6th to 8th, the 2021 Global Green Development Forum focusing on "Energy Transformation and Innovation under the Vision of Carbon Neutrality" was held in Chengdu. Chinese Academy of Sciences academician and honorary president of the China Electric Power Research Institute Zhou Xiaoxin proposed "two constructions" at the forum.

Data shows that by the end of 2020, China's coal power installed capacity was approximately 1.095 billion kilowatts, accounting for about 49.8% of the total installed capacity, historically entering within 50%. However, due to high energy density, the proportion of coal power generation still remains at around 65%. Zhou Xiaoxin said that according to analysis, by 2060, China's fossil energy power generation needs to basically be zero, while wind power, solar power, biomass energy, hydropower, and nuclear power need to account for 99.5%, otherwise carbon neutrality cannot be achieved.

In fact, vigorously developing renewable energy and green energy is precisely the main path that many experts have mentioned for China to achieve carbon neutrality. Among them, the development of green energy in western China has attracted much attention.

"Developing wind and solar power resources in the west is one of the major projects for China to achieve the 'dual carbon' goals," said Tang Yuan, a researcher at the China Policy Research Society. "For example, the Qaidam Basin in Qinghai has 110,000 square kilometers of desert that can be used for wind and solar power resource development, and the development cost is very low. The on-grid electricity price for wind power generation can be controlled within 0.2 yuan per kilowatt-hour." Tang Yuan emphasized that in the western regions of China, developing a number of large-scale wind and solar power generation bases using wind and solar resources to replace coal power and forming an electricity supply pattern dominated by renewable energy is one of the important paths to fundamentally reverse China's energy supply pattern dominated by coal.

"To implement carbon reduction, in addition to reducing carbon dioxide emissions through energy transformation, carbon dioxide needs to be absorbed from the air as well," said Tang Yuan. Therefore, China also needs to carry out large-scale afforestation to form carbon sink forests. Considering that general trees have low economic viability and cannot be sustainably developed, it is recommended to use barren hills and wasteland to develop oil energy forests, "which can not only form carbon sink forests on barren hills and wasteland, but also increase the supply of biomass oil, reduce oil imports, and have considerable economic benefits." 

Another major focus of energy transformation is the transformation of the power system. Regarding this, Chinese Academy of Engineering academician and expert committee chairman of the Southern Power Grid Company Li Lieming proposed that in the future, China needs to implement universal electrification, using electricity to produce hydrogen and methanol to replace fossil energy. This requires enhancing the digitalization, informatization, and intelligence of the power system and building a "transparent power grid".

"What does a 'transparent power grid' mean? It means that the entire power grid needs to be fully visible, controllable, and manageable. It needs to be deeply integrated with the power system of the power grid through information technology, integration technology, communication technology, sensing technology, control theory, and control technology to achieve free data collection, data storage, and data acquisition by the power grid and intelligent analysis," explained Li Lieming further. In terms of power storage technology, Professor Guan Xiaohong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University, stated that traditional energy sources are converted into electricity and then fed into the power grid. However, no large-scale, economically viable power storage technology has been found yet. It must be a system that achieves instantaneous balance between supply and demand. This poses a fundamental challenge to the utilization of highly uncertain renewable energy sources. As a result, phenomena such as wind power, solar power, and water power being discarded are very serious.

"Hydrogen has the advantages of being clean, renewable, and having high energy density. Hydrogen fuel cells are a good storage direction. The technologies for hydrogen production and storage are at the dawn of a technological revolution," said Guan Xiaohong. Therefore, China needs to pay special attention to the breakthroughs in photocatalytic hydrogen production technology, hydrogen storage technology under normal temperature and pressure, and hydrogen fuel cell technology. (End)