The three gorges dam in China is a major source of hydroelectricity
Costfoto / Nurphoto / Shutterstock
The vast electrical network of China buzzes with more renewable energies than those of any other country, but this system also becomes more vulnerable to energy shortages caused by unfavorable weather conditions. The need to guarantee a reliable power supply could push the Chinese government to use more coal power plants.
The Chinese energy system quickly becomes cleaner, with practically each month establishing new records for the production of wind and solar energy. Global greenhouse gas emissions in the country – the highest in the world – should Wear soon and start refusing. Wind, solar and hydroelect energy promised to achieve “carbon neutrality”.
This growing dependence on renewable energies also means that the country's energy system is increasingly vulnerable to time changes. The intermittent wind and sun can be supplemented by more stable hydroelectricity, produced by huge hydroelectric dams concentrated in the south of China. But what happens when a wind and solar crisis coincides with drought?
Jianjian Shen At the Dalian University of Technology in China and its colleagues have modeled how electricity production on the increasingly renewable network would respond to these years of “extreme time”. They estimated how the current and proposed combination of the country of wind, solar and hydroelectric of the country would behave in the least favorable weather conditions observed in the past.
They found that the future grid would be significantly more sensitive to time changes than today. In 2060, an extremely unfavorable year could reduce the amount of electricity production capacity used by 12% compared to today's network, causing current shortages. In 2030, in the most extreme case, they found that this would lead to an electricity shortage of more than 400 terawatt hours, or almost 4% of the total energy demand. “This is not a number that anyone can just ignore,” says Li shuo At the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington DC.
In addition to a global lack of power, droughts could specifically limit the amount of hydroelectricity available to smooth the irregular wind and solar generation. This could also lead to energy shortages. “It is essential to equip the electricity network with an appropriate proportion of stable energy sources which are less affected by weather factors to avoid large -scale electricity shortages,” the researchers wrote in their article.
One way to help would be to move excess electricity more effectively between the provinces. The expansion of the transmission infrastructure to do this could eliminate the risk of current shortages on today's network and reduce the risk by 2060, the researchers revealed. The addition of tens of millions of kilowatts again energy storage, whether by using batteries or other methods, would also reduce hydroelectric droughts, they found.
The quantity of additional storage of China will have to add to the neutrality of carbon “will be an astronomical number”, explains Li Shuo.
Although these changes are difficult, adding that a lot of storage is possible since the huge volume of batteries already produced in China, says Lauri Myllyvirta At the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Finland. He says that the country also built 190 hydroelect storage gigawatts Longer -term energy storage By pumping water over a dam using excess electricity, then releasing it when more electricity is necessary.
However, to date, electricity shortages have mainly prompted the Chinese government to build more coal power plants. In 2021 and 2022, for example, hydroelectric droughts and heat waves increased sufficient power demand to cause serious breakdowns, creating political pressure for a Continuous expansion of coal. In 2023, Record hydroelectric generation led to record emissions.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said that coal energy would cultivate this year, but that political support rooted at the source of power makes it a difficult perspective. “If China suffers from another cycle of these episodes, no more coal power plants should not be the answer,” explains Li Shuo. “It is simply difficult to remove coal; China loves coal. “
