“We are at a moment where clean energy growth is larger than demand growth,” said Bernice Lee, research director at international affairs think tank Chatham House. If China’s rapid deployment of solar and wind continues, the country’s carbon emissions are “likely to continue falling, making 2023 the peak year,” Asia Society Policy Institute senior fellow Lauri Myllyvirta said in a report last week. Yet the trajectory for China’s emissions would depend on the government’s response to a slowing pace of growth, and whether it continues to pursue Xi’s long-term objective of prioritizing higher-tech industries. Authorities would also have to reconfigure China’s electricity system to address grid limitations that mean a small, but rising volume of wind and solar power is going to waste. About 3.3 percent of solar generation was curtailed this year through May, compared with 2 percent in the same period last year.

Source: Taipei Times July 17, 2024 17:27 UTC