The World Steps into A Low-carbon Era and China Adopts New Energy Strategy to Seek for A Commanding Point

The financial crisis has ushered in the low carbon age. As a new wave of international competition dawns, new energies are expected to play a decisive role in future competition.

“The world is entering a major period of change in which low-carbon will become the mainstream. In order to address the conflict between the high-carbon energy-centered structure and the demand for low-carbon development, China will develop low-carbon energy technology with great efforts and speed up the establishment of pillar industries in green and alternative energy sources such as wind energy, solar energy and advanced nuclear energy.” said Xie Kechang, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering recently at the “Science & Technology Innovation and Urban Future” forum held at the Shanghai Expo.

Xie Kechang and many other experts attending the forum pointed out that energy shortages and environmental issues are forcing the world towards low carbon. In global competition for a leading position in the development of low-carbon economies, new energy industries are emerging as a key area of contention between countries. China is seeking to secure a global position of command in new energy industries.

Low-carbon economy changes the landscape of international new energy industries
“The rocketing of raw material prices like petroleum and mineral products and increasingly severe problems such as environmental problems and global climate change are showing us that the current mode of development, in which large-scale consumption of natural resources and the destruction of the environment are the cost, is unsustainable. In the face of a global energy crisis, low-carbon technology and green development have become the important solutions for urban sustainable development.” said Zhong Yanqun, Executive Vice Director of the World Expo 2010 Shanghai Executive Committee.

“In Europe, 30 cities have been selected to test hi-tech energy systems on a trial basis.” said Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary General of UNCTAD. On March 9 this year, the European Commission announced a target of 20% renewable energy resources and 12% solar power generation by 2020, and announced that it would invest EUR 105 billion to support the “green economy” in EU countries by 2013. 

Immediately after being elected as the US President, Barack Obama put forward investing hundreds of billions of US dollars in new energy resources as an important measure to save the US economy. The US has continued its policy of tax reduction and exemption for photovoltaic investments and has offered subsidy modes that provide more benefit for investments.

Supachai Panitchpakdi said: “Not only developed countries are exploring urban development with low-carbon, green and renewable energy resources, but also developing countries like China, Brazil and India are leading other developing nations, and have become exporters of solar energy, wind energy and bio-fuel technologies.”

China now is leading the world in many energy fields, such as nuclear energy and coal energy. China is the largest investor in renewable energy resources in the world. China’s technologies in wind power generation and solar power generation have greatly reduced the costs of wind power generation and solar power generation in the world.

“Developing new energy resources is the most important way of realizing low-carbon economy, and new energy industries are becoming important tools for governments to combat economic recession.” Many experts attending the forum expressed that in the age of rapid developed urbanization, the demand for low-carbon economies is reshaping the landscape of new energy industries, with new energy industries represented by solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectricity and nuclear power generation are demonstrating robust growth.

China’s new energy industries are showing their international competitiveness
The core of the low-carbon economy is new energy technologies, including wind energy, solar energy, terrestrial heat, tidal energy, biomass energy, hydroelectricity and nuclear power. In recent years, China’s new energy industries have developed fast. Taking wind power generation, the fastest growing sector, as an example, growth has doubled for three successive years. The photovoltaic capacity of Jiangsu represents half of the capacity of China and 20% of the global capacity. Industrial specialization and respective advantages are being seen in provinces, regions and municipalities of Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangxi, Hebei, Sichuan, Henan, Chongqing, Qinghai etc. Over 10 Chinese solar energy enterprises are listed overseas, and represent 7 of the top 20 solar power enterprises in the world. In 2007, the component capacity of Sun Tech ranked first in the world.

The development of China’s new energy industries leads the world in many fields. By the end of 2009, the installed capacity of China’s wind power and solar power generation reached 17,580,000 kW and 230,000 kW respectively, increasing by 51 times and 7.7 times over the year 2000. The installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation has rocketed to over 160 million kilowatts for the year, which exceeds the total installed capacities in the decades before 2009. A total of 85% or 135 million kilowatts of solar energy has been linked to the power grid. The completed capacity of introduced nuclear power is 9.1 million kilowatts and the capacity under construction is as high as 20 million kilowatt. The goal of 70 million kilowatts is expected to be achieved by 2020. Now, China's capacity in solar energy generation and its utilization area of solar energy are the highest in the world. Its wind power has increased several fold in recent years. New installed capacity of wind power in 2009 was over 10 million kilowatts, ranking the first in the world. In terms of the total installed capacity, China ranks the third place after the US and Germany.

However, as new energy industries warm-up, many worries are beginning to appear. Besides the protracted debate on whether there is surplus in the new energy capacity is surplus, some local governments and enterprises have blindly followed the trend and repeated the construction of industrial chains. As a result, some areas where new energy industries have just started up are showing signs of unbalanced development.

In addition, compared to developed countries, China’s new energy lacks in technological level, involves higher utilization costs and is less competitive, which is preventing the scaled promotion of the industry.

Some experts have frankly stated that because China lacks thorough and detailed planning of the overall development of new energy, the development of the industry cannot match the scale of its growth, and there are problems such as incomplete new energy industry chains and disconnection of the upstream and downstream industry chains.

China is marching to the commanding point of new energy
In fact, as a major contributor to carbon emissions, China is giving unprecedented focus to the development of new energy industries. During the “Twelfth Five-year Plan”, the overriding task of China is to foster and develop the new energy industry, including renewable energy resources such as nuclear power, hydroelectricity, wind energy, solar energy and biological energy.

At present, nearly 20 provinces, districts and municipalities in China have issued new energy promotion plans and over 100 cities are planning to construct new energy industrial bases, including large and massive cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Suzhou.

We learned at the forum that China’s first large scale offshore wind power project, the Donghai Bridge Offshore Wind Farm, has been essentially completed, which is the first network incorporated offshore wind power project outside of Europe. Meanwhile, the Municipal Government of Shanghai is promoting the implementation of a solar energy roofing plan in government offices and residences.

It can be seen that the development of new energy industries is an inevitable trend. Questions facing the government, enterprises and society include the issues of how to coordinate the development of new energy industries and how to assume a position of command in global new energy industries. 

Many experts have pointed out that the most urgent matter at hand is to make a long-term plan for the future development of the new energy industries which will ensure a rational layout, sharing of strengths, focus on long term interests, the regulation of local industry development and the avoidance of repeated development. In the opinion of Xie Kechang, efforts should be made in the improvement of key technology development and independent intellectual property rights, such as network incorporation and distribution technology for intermittent energy resources.

“We need to build an efficient, clean and low-carbon energy supply system and promote the technological advancement of energy transformation departments. The most important thing is to ensure per capita energy consumption is much lower than the level of developed countries, advocate low-carbon lifestyles and build a environmentally friendly society.” said Xie Kechang (Source: China Information)

 

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