Renewable energy curtailment is a critical issue in China, impeding the country’s transition to clean energy and its ability to meet its climate goals. This paper analyzes the impacts of more flexible coal-fired power generation and improved power dispatch towards reducing wind power curtailment. A unit commitment model for power dispatch is used to conduct the analysis, with different scenarios demonstrating the relative impacts of more flexible coal-fired generation and improved power dispatch. Overall, while we find both options are effective in reducing wind power curtailment, we find that improved power dispatch is more effective: (1) the effect of ramping down coal-fired generators to reduce wind power curtailment lessens as the minimum output of coal-fired generation is decreased; and (2) as a result, at higher wind capacity levels, wind curtailment is much more significantly reduced with improved power dispatch than with decreased minimum output of coal-fired generation.
Key policy insights
China should emphasize both coal power flexibility and dispatch in its policies to minimize renewable power curtailment and promote clean energy transition.
China should accelerate the process of implementing spot market and marginal cost-based economic dispatch, while making incremental improvements to the existing equal share dispatch in places not ready for spot market.
A key step in improving of dispatch is incorporating renewable power forecasts into the unit commitment process and updating the daily unit commitment based on the latest forecast result.
China should expand the coal power flexibility retrofit programme and promote the further development of the ancillary service market to encourage more flexibility from coal-fired generation.
China has been experiencing widespread air pollution due to rapid industrialization and urbanization in recent decades.The two major concerns of ambient air quality in China are particulate matter(PM) and tropospheric ozone(O_3). With the implementation of air pollution prevention and control actions in the last five years, the PM pollution in China has been substantially reduced. In contrast, under the conditions of the urban air pollution complex, the elevated O_3 levels in city clusters of eastern China, especially in warm seasons, have drawn increasing attention. Emissions of air pollutants and their precursors not only contribute to regional air quality, but also alter climate. Climate change in turn can change chemical processes, long-range transport, and local meteorology that influence air pollution. Compared to PM, less is known about O_3 pollution and its climate effects over China. Here, we present a review of the main findings from the literature over the period 2011–18 with regard to the characteristics of O_3 concentrations in China and the mechanisms that drive its interannual to decadal variations, aiming to identify robust conclusions that may guide decision-making for emissions control and to highlight critical knowledge gaps. We also review regional and global modeling studies that have investigated the impacts of tropospheric O_3 on climate, as well as the projections of future tropospheric O_3 owing to climate and/or emission changes. 相似文献