Rengifo, C. (2017). Renewable energy in China: status and future prospects [Master Thesis, Technische Universität Wien]. reposiTUm. https://doi.org/10.34726/hss.2017.51183
The objective of this work is to analyse the current status of the Chinese renewable energy program (wind power and solar PV) and outline its future prospects. In this context, one particular endeavour of this work has been to discuss China not only at the macro level (i.e. China as a single unit), but also to discuss the different financial and technical realities of the wind and solar PV sectors at the provincial level. This work will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data for the analysis of the country’s renewable energy program. The quantitative analysis will cover areas such as power demand/supply dynamics, electricity capacity and production, Feed-in Tariff costs, and other factors regarding the economics of renewable energy. The qualitative analysis mainly covers the areas related to environmental and energy policies, including the latest reforms of the power sector. This work has been able to identify the unique features of the Chinese renewable energy program and further research should be undertaken in order improve the understanding of renewable energy development in China and the complexity of its national and provincial system for developing wind and solar PV. In the last ten years, China has made major progress in the deployment of wind power and solar PV capacity and it will likely meet or surpass its 2020 targets for these power sources. There are, however, several challenges ahead for the deployment of these electricity sources. China is not only planning to increase renewable energy capacity to its electricity mix by 2020 and beyond, but it is also expanding the capacity of nuclear, hydro, natural gas, and – to a lesser extend – coal. As China’s is experiencing power overcapacity, the constant expansion of electricity production does not seem to be the best way forwards for the country. The government is, nevertheless, trying to address the overcapacity issue and other related challenges and has introduced several pieces of legislation to reform the Chinese electricity market. Many of these reforms have just started to be implemented or will start soon. It is therefore too early to predict how they will affect the electricity market in general and the wind power and solar PV markets in particular. What is clear though is that the Chinese government has taken the policy decision to move away from coal and deploy sources with lower CO2 emissions.