Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
(percentage of total energy investment)
France
UK
Japan
US
China
0
20
40
60
80
100
Power Grid
Generation Systems
Figure 6.8
. National Comparisons of Investment in Energy Infrastructure vs. Generation
Systems Since 1978
Source of data
: Li (2012).
renewable energy law requires utilities to purchase all available renew-
able energy at prescribed prices, there is evidence that many utilities have
been slow to accommodate new projects because the absence of suicient
peak-load technologies forces utilities to run coal-ired power plants at sub-
optimal levels to provide peak-load support.
66
his inlates generation costs
and has exacerbated utility resistance to wind energy.
67
he geographic separation of renewable energy supply centers from key
demand centers also poses logistical challenges and further inlates costs.
Seventy-eight percent of China's hydropower resources are concentrated in
the sparsely populated west. Meanwhile, the 11 provinces with the highest
population concentrations possess only 6% of total hydropower resources.
68
he wind power story is similar. he areas of greatest onshore wind power
potential lie in China's north—in regions such as Xinjiang, Gansu, and
Inner Mongolia. Conversely, aside from Hebei and Jiangsu Provinces, the
major electricity demand centers in eastern and southern China possess
much lower onshore wind power potential. In combination, this also sug-
gests that ofsetting stochastic wind power lows is problematic because
hydropower resources predominate in the west while wind power potential
predominates in the north.
All of this points to the foundations of a logistical dilemma. In order to
tap China's abundant renewable energy potential, grid connections must
be established to deliver electricity from supply centers to geographically
distant demand centers. As the next section describes, the CPC is striving
to address this challenge but it bears noting that the geographic challenge of
getting energy to demand centers is not new in China. Many of China's coal
