Renewables and Alternative Energy

Trade negotiations between the European Union and China regarding solar panels have hit a bump in the road, as the European trade commissioner complained about Chinese pressure on individual EU nations that he said was designed to prevent Europe from reaching a consensus.

Leading China experts and top media representatives participated in a ChinaFAQs press call today on how the country will address pressing environmental, climate and energy challenges at home and globally in the coming years. At the National People’s Congress beginning March 5, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are expected to formally become China’s president and premier, respectively. Other top spots in China’s ministries will also be assigned, with implications for China’s future of low-carbon development and for the U.S. The briefing was one of ChinaFAQs’ events highlighting the reasons for China’s action on low-carbon energy, including: energy security, economic competitiveness through technological innovation, and climate and environmental impacts.

As the biggest coal-consuming and coal-producing nation in the world, China is perhaps an unlikely place to find a burgeoning wind power industry. Yet today China is the biggest wind power market in the world and builds almost all its wind turbines at home. China’s wind power capacity has increased over a hundredfold in the past decade (from 344 MW in 2000 to 44,733 MW in 2010) and estimates for 2012 put installed wind capacity at about 80 GW (see Figure 1). Just a decade ago the country had only a handful of wind turbines in operation—all imported from Europe and the United States.

The latest International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2012 re-confirms the dangerous path the world is on–a path of increasing dependence on coal, which carries serious environmental risks for people and the planet. According to the report, the world will burn 1.2 billion metric tons more coal per year by 2017 compared to today, surpassing oil as the world’s top energy source.

When it comes to coal consumption, no other nation comes close to China. The country reigns as the world’s largest coal user, burning almost half of the global total each year. About 70 percent of China’s total energy consumption and nearly 80 percent of its electricity production come from coal, and its recent shift from being a historical net coal exporter to the world’s largest net coal importer took only three years.

China’s great thirst for coal is undeniably troubling from a sustainable development standpoint. However, the situation may be changing…

Presentation by Stephen Munro, Policy and International Analyst, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, given at a Congressional briefing “Why China Is Acting on Clean Energy: Successes, Challenges, and Implications for U.S. Policies”, Washington, D.C., October 12, 2012.

The US department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission have commenced proceedings in trade cases regarding imports of solar cells and other clean energy products from China. The matter is now progressing through the official process for handling such international trade cases. ChinaFAQs has assembled a collection of resources and statements from official sources, media, and concerned groups regarding the cases, and will continue to monitor developments as they unfold.

After meeting in Russia in early September, representatives of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) nations, including China and the U.S., reached an agreement on a list of environmental goods on which to cut tariffs to 5 percent or less by 2015.

“The Obama Administration’s preliminary decision to impose a 31 per cent tariff on solar panels imported from China is short sighted. The move could cause a trade war, hurt the US economy, jeopardize US security interests, and put the world further off course in terms of meeting its global climate change goals.”

Read the full article at the Financial Times…

ChinaFAQs expert Joanna Lewis, professor at Georgetown University, joined Craig Allen, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia at the Department of Commerce, and Jigar Shah, President of the Coalition for Affordable Energy, for a discussion of U.S.-China clean energy relations at the Woodrow Wilson Center in May as part of the China Environment Forum (CEF).

This ChinaFAQs Issue Brief profiles a selection of recent U.S.-China cooperative projects in clean energy, offering a flavor of the breadth and depth of Sino-American cooperation, as well as potential benefits and challenges.

This week, the U.S. Department of Commerce is expected to issue a preliminary decision on a trade petition filed by SolarWorld Industries America, Inc. SolarWorld alleges that the Chinese have used subsidies to artificially suppress solar panel export prices, and has asked Commerce to levy a duty to eliminate that price discrepancy.

ChinaFAQs expert Melanie Hart and Kate Gordon at the Center for American Progress analyze this trade case and the implications of the decision for the U.S. solar industry and U.S. energy policy in “The Complexities of the U.S. Decision on Chinese Solar Panel Imports.”

The UN Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa, concluded over the weekend with a consensus to negotiate an agreement that will include all major emitters of warming gases. The conference agreed to a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, extended the work of the group for Long-term Cooperative Action, and most significantly established new negotiations under the Durban Platform. Launching these negotiations was hailed as major progress around the world (Bloomberg, The Statesman, Xinhua). For the first time the world’s three major emitters (by total amount of greenhouse gases emitted), China, the United States and India, have agreed to begin negotiations for an international “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force,” indicating that there will be actions and efforts by all countries. (For the implications of this complex legal wording, see my colleague Jake Werksman’s discussion on WRI Insights).

China once again hosted its largest wind power expo, China Wind 2011, surpassing last year’s exhibition with the number of companies and the exhibition floor space increasing by 50%. Not surprisingly for an event in Beijing, the China market continued to be a major focus, but this year there was much more sense of a global market with increasing interest in new emerging markets, in particular Latin America.

Aurthors Dr. Jihua Pan, Haibing Ma, and Dr. Ying Zhang discuss the potential for China’s green development strategy to generate jobs in energy, transportation, and forestry in a report published by the Worldwatch Institute.

“Over the past decade, and especially during the 11th Five-Year period of 2006–10, China has prioritized green development in almost all of its leading economic sectors.

China has remained the most attractive destination for clean energy investment for a full year, followed by the U.S., according to the most recent Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices compiled by consulting firm Ernst & Young. The report showed China increasing its rating from 71 to 72 on a 100-point scale last quarter, followed by the U.S. unchanged at 67. As Bloomberg reports, the report attributed China’s gain to its increased focus on offshore wind and concentrated solar power, in addition to new renewable energy targets in its 12th Five Year Plan.

On April 5, 2011, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and ChinaFAQs held a briefing on China’s increasing role in advancing renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate policies. China is a leader in the deployment of clean energy technologies, and the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels. The United States and China cooperate on a number of clean energy initiatives, producing benefits for both countries.

Chairman Bingaman, Senator Murkowski, and other members of the Committee, thank you very much for inviting me to testify before you today on the topic of global investment trends in clean energy technologies1, and the impact of domestic policies on that investment. I am Kelly Sims Gallagher, a professor of energy and environmental policy at The Fletcher School, at Tufts University. I direct our program on Energy, Climate, and Innovation, and concurrently serve as a Senior Research Associate at the Belfer Center in the Harvard Kennedy School. I served as a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Public Policy and Management last summer where I conducted research on global energy commercialization, with emphasis on the role of China.

China invested $54.4 billion on clean energy in 2010, $20 billion more than the U.S., according to the latest report from Pew Charitable Trusts and Bloomberg New Energy Finance released today. This is one-fifth of a global market that is growing at a record 30% pace. The competitive position of the U.S. has “deteriorated” so much that it slipped down to number three in private investment, as small-scale solar installations launched Germany into the number two spot. Pew and Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s take-away: policies matter as China and Germany had strong ones and US policies stagnated.

Read the full post at Jake Schmidt’s NRDC Switchboard blog.

The draft of China’s much-anticipated 12th Five-Year Plan was released this Saturday, March 5 at the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC). The Plan will actually be brought to a vote at the close of the session later this week. While there may be some changes to the Plan, in past years these have not been large.

In a move that exceeded expectations, China’s former Minister in charge of the National Energy Administration, Zhang Guobao, announced yesterday that for the 12th Five Year Plan China would cap total energy use at 4 billion tons coal equivalent (TCE) by 2015. There had been rumors that China would adopt a total coal cap in the 12th Five Year Plan, but Zhang’s announcement goes beyond just coal to include all energy sources.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing on Wednesday, February 16th, to receive testimony from Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu on the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request. In the Chairman’s opening statement, Senator Bingaman (D-NM) said: “…we actually spend less than China on energy R&D per unit of GDP. China is investing heavily in manufacturing and deploying wind, solar, and nuclear power plants. These investments are already translating into global sales and domestic Chinese jobs in an area where the United States once led the world.”

China and the U.S. issued a joint statement Wednesday, January 19, covering the range of issues discussed during President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Washington this week. The White House also posted a fact sheet summarizing Hu and Obama’s agreement to enhance cooperation on climate change, clean energy, and the environment. The Department of Energy provides further detail on these Clean Energy Cooperation Announcements.

On January 18, 2011, the Department of Energy released a report detailing the substantial progress made to date on a number of clean energy initiatives between China and the United States.

To download the report, click here

As Chinese President Hu Jintao and President Obama prepare to meet in Washington next week, economic and security issues have been receiving the most attention in recent press. However, the visit also presents an opportunity to discuss climate and energy issues, which have long represented areas for cooperation between the two nations, even amid tensions over other issues. We asked several experts from the ChinaFAQs network to provide their views on what they would like to see result from this summit.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced last week that it has requested World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement consultations regarding one of the Chinese subsidy programs named in the United Steelworkers petition to USTR. According to USTR, these wind industry subsidies seem to be contingent on the use of parts made in China.

As negotiators arrive in Cancun for the next round of global climate talks, speculation once again hovers around China’s positions. China is a tough negotiator, and we can once again see it expressing concern about its core issues, including developed country mitigation commitments, technology transfer and the adequacy of financing. But as we look to negotiating positions, it is also worth stepping back for a minute to reflect on what China is doing domestically and how China’s efforts to promote energy efficiency and low carbon technologies can contribute to the global effort to combat climate change.

While the UN climate talks at Tianjin went slowly, a trip to China offered the opportunity for the world to see the successes in wind technology development and deployment experienced there and throughout the region. This progress was highlighted in both a wind-focused side event at the Tianjin conference that Joanna Lewis organized for Georgetown University, and at the annual China Windpower 2010 conference held in Beijing the week after the climate talks.

Download from the link above “Building up Capacity to Support the Control of Sectoral GHG Emissions: a Case Study for the Cement Industry”, a presentation by WRI’s Song Ranping from “Tools for a Low-Carbon Pathway in China”, WRI’s Side Event at the UNFCCC conference in Tianjin, China.

Download from the link above “Low Carbon Development in China: Vision, Issues, and Latest Progresses”, a presentation by WRI China Country Director Zou Ji from “Tools for a Low-Carbon Pathway in China”, WRI’s Side Event at the UNFCCC conference in Tianjin, China.

The U.S. energy regulatory system is “a relic of the 1860s”, according to Jeff Immelt, Chairman of GE, one of the World’s largest manufacturers of new clean energy technology. In a conference in Washington, DC last week, he urged the U.S. government to take positive action in the United States to support clean technology. Yes, said Immelt, China is a competitor, but not just China. Countries such as Canada and Australia also “have much simpler regulatory structures for energy and are moving more quickly.”

Climate change was not the big news it was a year ago at the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED). This is not surprising given that China made its major commitment on emissions reductions – its 40-45% carbon intensity target by 2020 – last year and US climate legislation is pending in the Senate. But many of the key players on climate change, including Secretary of State Clinton, her Climate Negotiator Todd Stern, and Department of Energy Assistant Secretary David Sandalow, were at the meeting. Energy Secretary Steven Chu stayed in the US to address the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but his Department co-hosted three major bilateral seminars on energy efficiency, renewable energy and biofuels after the S&ED.

Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh described the “Copenhagen Spirit” as substantially improving ties between China and India and leading to improved cooperation in related environmental areas, including hydrographic data, glaciological research and forestry. He expressed hope that an MOU signed last fall on energy technologies would yield some concrete projects, but admitted those opportunities had yet to be explored.

In late November 2009, China announced its intention to reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions within the Chinese economy by 40-45% by 2020, as compared with a 2005 baseline. China then reported this goal to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat on January 28, 2010.

This announcement, coming on the heels of the United States’ announced pledge of a 17% reduction in absolute greenhouse gas emissions between 2005 and 2020, garnered a great deal of attention within both the US and internationally, with experts weighing in with both approval and doubts about China’s ambition.ⁱ

To enhance understanding of China’s commitment, we provide answers to the major questions related to the Chinese carbon intensity target below.

ChinaFAQs Experts Rob Bradley, Jennifer Turner, Stephen Hammer, and Angel Hsu testified before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission on April 8 to lend insight into both China’s domestic and international Green Energy and Environmental Policies.

See the Library & Data section for the complete testimonies of all four experts, or follow the links below:

• Rob Bradley’s Testimony
• Jennifer Turner’s Testimony
• Stephen Hammer’s Testimony
• Angel Hsu’s Testimony

This year looks to be the biggest Earth Hour thus far for the World Wildlife Fund in China. The WWF announced earlier this week that Beijing’s Forbidden City would be among the noted monuments around the world to go dark for the annual one-hour event on March 27 to raise environmental awareness. WWF China Director Dermot O’Gorman told me that hundreds of community organizations have signed on to participate, and the program now has 30 cities signed on in China almost double last year’s number. O’Gorman said cities like Earth Hour as a way to “show how they contribute to a global effort to raise awareness,” as well as linking the event to their energy efficiency campaigns.

China utilizes an array of complementary policy measures to spur domestic R&D and innovation in clean technology. These measures include:

• designing a national-level S&T strategy prioritizing clean energy;
• establishing direct funding programs to support clean energy R&D;
• capitalizing on public-private synergies to bring together multi-sector expertise;
• pursuing a “going-out” policy of global engagement on clean energy development; and
• incentivizing the involvement of the private sector in clean tech innovation.

Complementing the 863 Program, which focuses on specific technologies, is the National Basic Research Program, also called the “973 Program.” Since its inception, core focuses of the 973 program have been energy, natural resources conservation, and environmental protection. From 1998 to 2008, the program supported 382 projects with a total funding level of 8.2 billion yuan ($1.3 billion), of which 28% went to energy, natural resources conservation and environmental protection.

In the past five years government R&D appropriations have increased dramatically, from 70.3 billion yuan ($11 bil) in 2001 to 168.9 billion yuan ($26 bil) in 2006. As a result, the share of R&D in total government expenditure increased from 3.7% to 4.2% from 2001 - 2006 (MOST 2007). Among the various publicly-funded S&T programs, the 863 & 973 programs provide the most direct funding sources for clean technologies.

For those tracking China climate and energy information, you might want to take a look at these blog entries. Blogger Vance Wagner has just updated his organizational chart for the Chinese government to try to capture the new National Energy Commission under the State Council. This chart is still a work in progress, and Vance says he welcomes comments on how to improve it, but it is extremely useful for seeing who is connected to whom in the Chinese government.

From Keith Bradsher, New York Times:

“TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.”

Investing Big in Concentrating Solar

If you’d asked us a few weeks ago, we might have said that China was charging ahead in wind and in solar photovoltaics, but was not a big player in the emerging technology of concentrating solar power. That has now changed dramatically. Last week U.S. company eSolar announced a $5 billion, 2 GW deal with Chinese company China Shandong Penglai Electric Power Equipment Manufacturing Co. If eSolar and partners succeed this will be the largest set of concentrating solar plants anywhere in the world.

Key Points

• China currently uses nuclear power plants to produce about 2% of its electricity, and 1% of its total energy.
• By 2020, China wants to generate at least 5% of electricity with nuclear power.
• China has 11 operating nuclear plants at three sites; the government plans to build 20 more plants by 2020.
• By 2030, China’s nuclear power program is expected to become the world’s second largest, behind the United States.
• Cooperation between the United States and China could be critical to efforts to develop a new generation of safe, reliable nuclear power plants that could help curb emissions of greenhouse gases.

When Chinese President Hu Jintao made the first speech by a Chinese leader to the United Nations General Assembly back in September he signaled that China would be announcing a target to reduce its carbon intensity by a “notable amount” relative to business as usual but did not reveal the actual number. Since then there has been much speculation as to what the “notable amount” that President Hu suggested would be.

This week, the talk has become more specific with reports that China will release its number over Thanksgiving weekend, partly in response to President Obama’s announcement today that the United States will in fact bring a numerical target to Copenhagen. The White House press release stated “the President is prepared to put on the table a U.S. emissions reduction target in the range of 17% below 2005 levels in 2020.”

With President Obama’s arrival in Beijing this afternoon, discussions of climate and energy are in high gear. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steve Chu kicked off bilateral discussions with a roundtable at the Chinese State Guest House with their Chinese government counterparts from the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Energy Administration, as well as a group of Chinese and American businesspeople, academics and NGOs.

This headline surprised me this week: “China Outperforms U.S. on Green,” especially when I discovered that it was a piece in the New Scientist about our own WRI report on China. The commentator implies WRI’s report shows China is way ahead of the U.S., when in fact we present an argument simply that China is following its own pretty effective path. China is still struggling with air and water pollution issues, and its situation is akin to the United States in the early 1970s when we were just bringing into effect our major air and water laws, as well as establishing the Environmental Protection Agency.

Even more international interest was focused on U.S.-China trade talks last week. China’s official news agency Xinhua greeted the talks’ completion with the headline: “China, U.S. pledge no new trade protection measures.” Since the Chinese worry about climate-related trade measures, this reassurance is important to bringing both countries closer to a climate deal. Similarly, the U.S. worries about Chinese domestic controls and subsidies, and the Chinese agreed to lift an important control on green technology imports. Chinese Trade Minister Chen Deming announced that China would no longer impose a 70% domestic content requirement on foreign wind turbine producers in China.