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Recently China's wind power industry is challenged by many problems such as wind power integration and wind curtailment, which seriously hinders the development of onshore wind power. Since China's policy has a direct and significant influence on wind power industry, it is vital to analyze and evaluate published policies. This paper explores in detail 134 China's onshore wind power policies from 2005 to 2015 so as to provide analytical support for future formulation and implementation of wind power policy. Based on policy summary from equipment manufacturing industry, wind farms and power grid industry, this paper evaluates the policies from the perspective of overall plan, support policy and policy implementation using fitting method, game theory and empirical analysis. The results indicate that China's wind policy is gradually becoming perfected, for example, there are more reasonable objectives and improved support policies. However, many problems remain to be solved, like unreasonable planning, imperfect support policies, immature trading systems and uncoordinated actions among interest related parties. Furthermore, combined with international experiences, suggestions on improving China's wind power policy are proposed from seven aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing transformation of the world's energy system requires detailed power-system models that help plan a cost-effective and reliable integration of variable renewables and demand-side resources. The quality and depth of the results of these models depend on the existence of trustworthy, complete, and high-resolution data on extant electric power assets and the demand they serve, wind and solar resources, and projections on costs and performance of technologies that could be developed during the next three decades. This paper assesses the quality of China's power system's publicly available data compared to the U.S. It concludes that despite growing use of power system models to inform and analyze Chinese energy policy, the availability of necessary data is still a significant barrier that severely limits the transparency, replicability, relevance, and usefulness of their results. • Ongoing energy system transformation requires detailed power-system models. • Usefulness of models' results depends on reliable, complete high-resolution data. • Paper proposes criteria to assess the quality of publicly available data for models. • Publicly available data for China's electric power system is scant and low quality. • Filling data gaps will inform decisions for a sustainable electric power system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is vast, abundant and particularly plentiful in energy sources, due to which it has obtained remarkable achievements on economy. However, its energy structure is too simple to support the sustainable development of economy as coal still contributes to the majority of energy consumption in China. As a consequence, Renewable Energy Law was enacted in 2005, and Chinese government announced a series of policies to boom renewable energy industry. Subsidy policy is one of the major forms of these policies. This paper aims to present these subsidy policies and to analyze their effects according to relative data in energy industry 2005–2013, to find out the deficiencies and enlighten possible policy improvements. The original intentions and abstracts of 5 different levels of subsidy related policies are summarized, and the effects in reality are attentively analyzed. It can be concluded that subsidy policies have different short-term effect on different renewable energies, and they all show some negative effect to a certain extent. 6 core problems are summarized in this paper, and remedy strategies are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green roof is an effective energy efficiency measure to reduce the building cooling load in summer and heating load in winter, in addition, it can add ecological benefit and landscape value to the community. Therefore, it has attracted extensive attention worldwide. This paper studies the selection of planting materials, plant configuration patterns and plant growth medium of the green roofs in China, and presents the researches on ecological benefits, thermal performance, and applications of the green roofs in China. This paper also introduces and analyzes the green roofs development policies in China, including the incentive mechanism, laws and regulations, and finally presents the analysis and suggestions on their application prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, there is no specific legal basis for the development and utilisation of marine renewable energy, nor legal protection for the developers in China. The consequence is that the Chinese Government is unable to provide institutional support for the substantive development of marine renewable energy, resulting in slow development of China's marine energy industry. This paper provides an institutional framework for the establishment of relevant laws in China and legislative proposals in legal perspective, for the better development of marine renewable energy. The Chinese Government should optimise the administrative management system, strengthen financial regulation such as tax and emphasise sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncovering the contributions of each sector’s driving factors to the growth of national economic carbon emissions has great significance for China in developing its nationwide emission trading scheme (ETS). The paper applies the index decomposition analysis (IDA) and logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) model to discuss the underlying drivers behind China’s national economic carbon emissions during the period 1996–2012 from both sector and factor decomposition perspectives and accordingly offers policy proposals for China’s national ETS development. Major conclusions include: (1) Six heavy industry sectors, the transport & storage & post sector, and the construction sector are the largest contributors, and hence proposed for incorporation into the ETS’s coverage. (2) The rapid expansion of economic output dominantly increases carbon emissions. The design of cap on emissions should allow for a proper increment and establish a new entrant reserve to coordinate economic development. (3) As the dynamics of carbon emissions vary markedly across sectors, allowance allocation needs to consider the changing sectoral structure of emissions. (4) The combined effects of sectoral energy intensity and structure changes largely offset carbon emissions. Benchmarking is suggested as an ideal allocation mechanism, and the setup of sectoral carbon intensity benchmark should synthetically evaluate the potential impacts of related factors. (5) Manufacturer-based manner and carbon offset mechanism are respectively recommended for the initial implementation of carbon trading in the transport & storage & post sector and the construction sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China׳s 12th Five-Year Plan, released in March 2011, specifies water management targets in addition to energy and carbon intensity targets. Energy and water resources are becoming the major bottlenecks restricting sustainable development in China. Energy and water are interconnected and complementary; however, macroenergy policies do not consider the impact on water resources, while water related policies do not consider the impact on energy consumption. In this paper, an energy-water evaluation methodology based on an input–output model was introduced, and correlation between energy and water supply sectors was established by this methodology. The correlation coefficients for the energy-water nexus, allowing the water savings associated with energy saving policies in China to be estimated, particularly for key industrial sectors during the 12th Five-Year Plan period were provided. These results indicate that by achieving the energy saving targets in the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan, progress will also be made toward achieving the water use targets. It is believed that targets for the synergies between energy savings and water conservation should be improved. The effect of water conservation resulting from energy savings varies greatly in different sectors, and to maximize the synergies, energy and water conservation technologies should be promoted in key industrial sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing with great pressure to feed the demand outstripping the supply situation as well as alleviate the energy pollution problem, China has accelerated the pace of shale gas exploration. During the 12th Five-Year-Plan (FYP) period, Chinese government and petroleum enterprises actively promoted the development of shale gas industry, and made certain progresses in various aspects. Meanwhile, a series of preferential and supportive policies were developed to encourage shale gas exploration. However, as the shale gas industry is still in the initial stage in China, there are many challenges and difficulties existing in shale gas development. This paper presents a systematical review on the current status and policies of shale gas industry in China, aiming to provide important reference to the policy-makers for introducing and improving policies. Firstly, the current status including progresses and difficulties is presented. Subsequently, the recent policies for shale gas development are reviewed. The analyses of current policies and implementation barriers are followed. Finally, specific policy suggestions are proposed and a general conclusion is drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzed the changes in carbon-dioxide (CO 2 ) emission in China׳s cement industry over the period 1991–2010. Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) was applied for the decomposition analysis. Five determinants were examined and the results divided into five time intervals, according to China׳s five-year economic plans. The results show that labor productivity was the major driving force of increase in CO 2 emission in China׳s cement industry, and energy intensity was the major contributor to CO 2 emission reduction. The other three factors also generated certain level of effects. This article provides some policy suggestions which could be adopted to reduce CO 2 emission in this energy-intensive industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy is an important factor in achieving a low-carbon economic development path in China. This paper investigates the factors influencing renewable electricity consumption in China. Specifically, the factors that influence the share of renewable electricity in total electricity consumption in China is investigated using data from 1980 to 2011 and employing the Johansen cointegration technique and vector error correction model. The result of the analysis shows that there is a long run relationship between renewable electricity consumption and GDP per capita, trade openness, foreign direct investment, financial development and share of fossil fuel in energy consumption. Economic development and financial development promotes renewable electricity consumption while foreign direct investment, trade openness and the lobby of conventional energy sources undermine the share of renewables in total electricity consumption in China. While the effects of shocks to the other variables appear to die out over time, the “lobby effect” is persistent and explosive. The results also show that there is a uni-directional short run causality from financial development to renewable electricity consumption and from renewable electricity consumption to trade openness. The Chinese government should pursue policies that not only increase the amount of renewable electricity, but also increase the share of renewables in total electricity consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, solar thermal utilization (STU) has a great process in China, not only with a large scale commercial development, but also with an increasing number of scientific publications and patent applications. In this paper, several representative technologies of STU in China are studied based on an analysis of the relationship between patents and policies. Patent information of STU is collected and analyzed in terms of the time distribution, type distribution and technical trends. The main driving factor—energy policy—was discussed through the patent analysis. STU patents took off after the millennium and 85.8% of them came from the solar water heater. For conventional technologies, 94.2% of the granted patents were from companies and individuals, and the patents proposed by various research institutions were mainly in the technological beginning and technological maturity. Advanced technologies are still at a growth stage in China, and they have 412 patents in all and 70.5% of the patents were from systematic design and test method. Energy policies have played a significant role in promoting the progress of STU in China. Based on a patent analysis, it can be expected that STU will enter the age of medium-high temperature in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, China has witnessed substantial progress in urbanization and industrialization and has become the manufacturing center of the world, but has suffered from severe environmental deterioration, especially air pollution. National and provincial governments have adopted a series of policy tools aiming at energy conservation and emission reduction, varying from energy saving regulations to cleaner production policies. This paper investigates provincial energy saving and emission reduction policies by evaluating their effectiveness on local air pollution control. Relying on a panel data regression analysis on a sample of 26 provinces and four centrally-controlled municipalities over a ten-year period from 2002 to 2011, we find empirical support for the positive impacts of provincial energy saving regulations and two environmental standards on the improvement of local air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reform of China’s power industry has lasted for decades, while the implementation of demand side management (DSM) in China is still in its infancy. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of the DSM and Demand Response (DR) programs in China under the context of China’s power industry reform. We first present a brief introduction of the background, including the socio economic status and geographical location of China, the energy policy of China, China’s power industry, the smart grids and microgrid in China, and the reform of China’s power industry. Then, based on the introduction of DSM and the analysis of DSM practices in some countries, we discuss the development status of DSM and the reform of electricity pricing in China. Finally, the main challenges in five aspects for the future development of DSM programs in China are proposed and discussed. These challenges include customer understanding and participation, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and information and communication technology (ICT), pricing mechanisms and optimal scheduling, big data analytics based decision support, as well as government regulations and market policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to ease environment pressure and alleviate the scarce problem of energy, Chinese government has begun to exploit and develop shale gas (SG) since 2009. However, the formation of competitive market is bristled with difficulties, due to its infancy, imperfect and lack of standardization. This paper firstly analyzes the status quo of technology, policy, cost, and competition of SG industry in China. Then a system dynamics (SD) model is built to show various trends of Chinese SG industry under different scenarios, which shows that technology, policy and cost all have effects on competitiveness. At last, the simulations reveal that the number of competitors in Chinese SG industry will arrive at its peak from 2019 to 2020. The corresponding recommendations have been presented: Chinese government should pay more attention on the perfection of laws and regulations of SG industry. And competitors should focus on increasing R&D investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the research is to study consumers' attitudes towards biodiesel implementation in China. In the paper, authors analyzed the future trends of diesel demand and revealed the prospects of biodiesel in China. And a comprehensive survey has been conducted for 226 private diesel vehicle owners (drivers) in Beijing. The questionnaire survey method is used to collect information, including respondents' viewpoints on fuels selection, biodiesel quality, biodiesel price and related policies. Furthermore, authors applied Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze the collected data. The results indicate that the most important factor affecting consumers' selection of biodiesel is price. Other significant factors are policy, government incentives and biodiesel quality. Besides, the results also showed that policy and government incentives could affect the price and quality of biodiesel. These results give rise to serious consideration about consumers' preference for and awareness of biodiesel. The research findings will help government and corporations to understand the consumer's energy consumption behaviors and improve the further implementation for biodiesel in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]