On July 26th, Fudan University's Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, along with the International Research Center of Disaster Risk Reduction (IRDR), published a research paper titled "Accelerating the energy transition towards photovoltaic and wind in China" in the journal Nature. This paper, for the first time, presents an integrated perspective from the energy system, proposing the optimal path for China to accelerate the development of solar and wind power and achieve the 2060 carbon neutrality target. Additionally, it reveals the potential and cost of China's solar and wind energy resources.
On July 26th, the team led by Professor Wang Rong from the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering and the International Research Center of Disaster Risk Reduction (IRDR) at Fudan University published a research paper titled "Accelerating the energy transition towards photovoltaic and wind in China" in the journal Nature. For the first time, the study proposed an integrated perspective from the energy system, optimizing the spatial location and power generation capacity of power plants, coordinating the development of essential supporting infrastructure (such as Ultra High Voltage (UHV) transmission lines and energy storage facilities), and achieving a coordinated interaction between electricity generation and demand across different provinces to realize the 2060 carbon neutrality target. The paper also revealed the potential and cost of China's solar and wind energy resources.
The research paper discloses the possibility of significantly reducing the cost of electricity generation, improving power utilization efficiency, accelerating poverty alleviation, and achieving carbon neutrality. It provides scientific recommendations for China's energy transition towards carbon neutrality.
In the past, the lack of a high-resolution Earth digital intelligent information system made it challenging to accurately quantify the potential and changing trends of solar and wind energy generation in China. This limitation resulted in the inability to accurately predict the optimal path for energy transition in comprehensive climate governance evaluations.
The research team at Fudan University, with the help of high-resolution hourly spatial data on solar radiation and wind speed in the Earth system, considered various spatial geographic information, including national administrative divisions, land types, climate conditions, terrain, altitude, land natural reserves, sea routes, sea depths, marine natural reserves, UHV substations, etc., to establish a high-resolution digital Earth intelligent network. Based on five different distribution patterns of power plants and their component costs, the team coordinated and optimized the development of UHV power transmission, selected suitable energy storage system types, and optimized power consumption loads, ultimately formulating a mid- to long-term plan for accelerating the development of solar and wind power generation to replace fossil fuels in China.
China's solar and wind energy resources are mainly distributed in economically less developed western regions. Transporting electricity between regions will not only enhance power utilization efficiency but also bring potential economic benefits to the western regions, promoting regional economic development.
The first author of the paper is Wang Yijing, a Ph.D. student from the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at Fudan University, and the corresponding author is Associate Professor Wang Rong. Important co-authors of the paper include Professor Zhang Renhe, Professor Chen Jianmin, Professor Tang Xu, and Professor Wang Lin from Fudan University, as well as significant collaborative units from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Climate Change Center of France, the National Institute for Environmental Studies of Japan, the Climate and Atmospheric Research Center of Cyprus Research Institute, and the Global Ecology Institute of Spain. The research was funded by the Key Research and Development Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
To achieve China's "dual carbon" goals, the team led by Professor Wang Rong has been engaged in cutting-edge research on climate change and the energy system, continuously achieving milestone results. This research paper is the team's second publication in the journal Nature.
On September 7th, 2022, the research team published their first research paper in the journal Nature, proposing a negative feedback mechanism of climate change on biomass energy technology from the perspective of Earth system feedback and revealing the critical points of climate mitigation systems.