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As an important energy base of China, Xinjiang is the key part of the “Silk Road” economic belt development strategy and is in an superior position. This paper analyzes the problems exist in the sustainable energy industry based on the distribution status of sustainable resources of Xinjiang. The evaluation index system of the application level of Renewable Energy Systems (RESs) is discussed using the wind farm as an example. Besides it investigates the advantages and disadvantages of the development process of each node in the “Silk Road” economic belt areas according to the current situation of the resources, economic and social development. Suggestions for the development of each area are proposed in the end. This paper will contribute to the sustainable development of renewable energy industry and economy in Xinjiang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to argue for the necessity and significance of studying the distributional employment impacts of renewable and new energy development (RNE). Based on the comprehensive review of the methodology and conclusions of existing literatures, this paper builds up an extended input–output model to study RNE’s distributional employment impacts on gender and personnel structure. The case study of China׳s power sector in this paper affirmed earlier doubts that RNE development will indeed aggravate the gender inequality problem and add to the level of mismatch between the structure of labor demand and supply, causing structural unemployment problems. The quantitative analysis in this paper outlined here implies that from 2011 to 2020 the development of RNE will bring about 7 million employment gains, but only 81.8% of which can be realized due to the mismatch problem. The study of China may alert other countries to be less-optimistic about RNE’s employment impacts and reaffirm the need to carry out the distributional employment impacts analysis. This paper concludes with policy suggestions such as providing suitable training and equal promotion opportunities for women, offering courses and vocational trainings to RNE-related majors, in order to reduce the structural unemployment problem and further speed up the development of RNE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: With rapid urbanization and industrialization, China has become both the largest energy consumer and CO2 emitting country in the world. As a clean and low-carbon energy source, renewable energy is a good choice to substitute for the exhausted fossil energy. The Chinese central and local governments have made a series of policies and optimistic plans to promote a rapid development of renewable energies. China′s renewable energy development has become a key to the sustainable development of socio-economic system. Unlike most of the current studies which mainly identified the challenges regarding policies and technologies around renewable energy or performed specific analyses for a certain kind of renewable energy, this paper summarizes the spatial disparity and consistency among the major renewable energies, coal resources, energy consumption and its major influencing factors in China, and reviews the positive and negative environmental impacts of major renewable energies. Based on the geographical and environmental perspectives, this paper recommends that the Chinese government: constructs the national energy production bases according to the resource distribution; integrates different energies on the basis of their natural features and spatial consistency; adjusts the overall layout of socio-economic development consistent with renewable energies; and promotes a moderate renewable energy development to maximize the environmental benefits. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The ecological protection project of substituting small hydropower for fuel (SSHF) in China is to consolidate the achievements of conceding the land to forestry and natural forest protection, solve the problems of the peasants' fuel and rural energy, protect the ecological environment, and promote the comprehensive development of rural economy and society. It is of great importance to the sustainable development of China in the 21st century. This paper provides a survey of substituting small hydropower for fuel in China. Over the last ten years, using small hydropower to replace the rural living fuel in China has resulted in great fruits. By the end of 2013, 252 SSHF projects had been completed in China, and the newly installed capacity of the SSHF power plants had reached 564 MW (MW). The demand of 1.593 million rural residents for living fuel and energy had been met in a long term, 6.29 million ac-res of the forest area had been protected, and the emission of a large amount of pollutants had been decreased. Moreover, many SSHF projects all over the country are still under construction. With regard to the challenges existing in the development course, some suggestions have been proposed. Implementation of the SSHF project will help realize the harmonious coexistence between human beings and the nature in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy is believed to be the central issue in sustainable development. Literatures on renewables׳ costs are rather sparse, especially on costs of integration and system balancing. The objective of this paper is to fill the research gap by providing an assessment for the cost of China׳s grid-connected renewable energy development and analyze its sharing between different stakeholders. Due to China׳s pricing mechanism of renewable energy and their cost decreasing potential, the pricing model of feed-in tariff and dynamic technological learning processes are employed. In the estimation of purchasing cost, the positive bias is overcome by considering China׳s energy-saving dispatching policy. The results suggest that purchasing cost would be 32.57–40.80 billion Yuan over 2012–2020, and peak in 2017. Grid integration costs which further involve costs of grid infrastructure and system balancing are also investigated. We find that grid infrastructure will cost 27.88 billion Yuan by 2015 and soar to 45.32 billion by 2020, while system balancing will cost 31.49 billion Yuan in 2015 and 63.97 billion Yuan in 2020 among which a substantial part (over 60%) comes from electricity loss in energy transfer. The different parts of these costs are underwritten by disparate participants due to China׳s renewable energy policies and its institutional arrangement. Purchasing cost is shared by power consumers through RES; the cost of grid infrastructure is mainly covered by grid enterprises; and there is no mechanism to specify how to share the cost electricity loss during system balancing which might become a major obstacle for system balancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed generation (DG) units can provide approaches and methodologies for the utilization and development of renewable energy. Meanwhile, electricity pool (EP), as a mode which can adapt to China’s energy and power market, can effectively promote the market competition. After analyzing China’s energy and power market, this paper, combining characteristics of distributed generation units with electricity pool, proposes Base–Market–Assist (BMA) in the pool mode. BMA mode not only makes a rational division according to China energy resources’ endowment, but also utilizes agent operators to conduct operation management of distributed generation units, providing new methods for China renewable energy development in aspects of technology, market and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, renewable energy plays a vital role in the sustainable development of a society. In China, renewable energy power has developed rapidly since the implementation of Renewable Energy Act. Through a series of specific incentive measures, especially subsidy policies, China's renewable energy power has made great achievements both in technology and application. Based on the state-of-the-art of renewable energy power, this paper comprehensively analyzed the costs and benefits of renewable energy power subsidy in China. The analysis results show the cost of renewable energy power subsidy was 0.248 CNY/kWh between 2006 and April 2011, which was distributed among different renewable energy power types (including wind power, biomass power, and solar PV power) or categories (including electricity price, accessing-grid projects, and public independent renewable energy power system). On the other hand, the renewable energy power subsidy also brings benefits to different aspects of the society. Specifically, the environmental benefit amounted to 17.88 billion CNY, and the benefits of guaranteeing energy security, advancing technology innovation and promoting economic development were also noteworthy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsidies to fossil-fuel consumption have made China's energy system fragile and unsustainable. It is necessary for China to reform fossil-fuel subsidies and reflect the resource cost and environmental cost in energy prices. Considering the life-cycle external costs, this paper estimates the scale of fossil-fuel subsidy and the true cost of renewable energy in 2010 and evaluates impacts of increasing renewable energy subsidies and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies on macro-economy and energy system in China based on scenario analysis. Simulation results show that the negative impacts on economic growth can be reduced from 4.460% to 0.432%, if only 10% of fossil fuel subsidies were removed. Increasing subsidies for renewable energy has positive impacts on macroeconomic variables. Although the economic benefits per unit of subsidies for renewable energy are lower than those for fossil fuels by 0.06-0.19 CNY, the revenue gap can be narrowed by shifting more subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables. Increasing subsidies for renewable energy helps optimize China's energy system in three ways: the first is making energy consumption structure cleaner; the second is improving energy efficiency; and the third is addressing the problem of imbalanced distribution and consumption of energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It is highly significant for China to improve its development of wind power. In order to promote the sustainable development, a more comprehensive evaluation of factors affecting the effectiveness of investment in the industry wind power is required to be conducted to formulate a relatively stable policy supporting mechanism for the development of wind power. Based on the green accounting framework, this paper evaluates a typical wind power project from economic, environment and energy alternative respects comprehensively. We simulate the main factors influencing cost and benefit of the wind power investment with the Monte Carlo method. Finally, we discuss how to promote wind power with respect to the concern of government, investors and environmentalists. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Wind energy, as a reliable, natural and renewable electrical power supply, produces no emissions and so it is an excellent alternative to conventional, more heavily polluting fuels in the long term based on the worldwide concern about the environment and energy supply. Wind energy resources in China are affluent, but its distribution are uneven, centralized, and far from both the utility and the high electricity demand markets. This made China''s onshore wind power development have such characteristics as large scale, high centralization and far transmission, which is different with that in Europe, where the characteristics are even distribution, decentralized. In past two decades, considering the economic, technical and environmental benefits of wind power, China has given priority to its development. Besides the dramatic growth of large scale grid-connected wind power, household-scale wind power has been used most successfully in remote rural regions in China. Therefore, the development of wind power will be of great importance to alleviate the energy crisis and environmental pollution resulting from the rapid economic growth of China in the future. In this paper, the current development of wind energy utilization in China is investigated, and some critical barriers are discussed. Finally, the perspective of wind energy utilization is presented, where focuses are placed on seven wind power bases. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper surveys China''s renewable energy economy, focusing particularly on renewable energy laws and programs, the lessons that can be learnt from the current literature, and the implications of that literature. Gaps in the literature on China''s renewable energy economy include the need for more comprehensive econometric studies. The literature may also benefit from more collaboration between renewable energy economists and agricultural economists. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]