An international climate governance regime and technological breakthroughs are the main pillars to address climate issues.The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement have created an institutional foundation for the international community to respond to climate change.This section aims to demonstrate that Global Energy Interconnection (GEI)may become the technological foundation to combat climate change.It will first elucidate the concept of GEI.Then it will provide details regarding how GEI can address climate change.
1 Understanding the concept of GEI
GEI was founded to seek a solution to global energy and environment challenges, focusing on energy security and environmental issues related to fossil energy utilization.The overdevelopment of fossil energy has resulted in numerous problems such as energy depletion, environmental pollution,and climate change, which are threatening energy security and the sustainable development of humankind.To resolve these severe problems, states now share a strategic goal to accelerate the development of a safe, reliable, economical,efficient, clean, and environmentally friendly modern energy supply system by capitalizing on a new round of energy evolution.The fundamental source of these problems lies in the existing high-carbon-dependent energy system.Therefore, GEI strives to evolve the energy system.At the center of achieving sustainability in the energy system lies the challenge of climate change, Thus, addressing climate change is itself a goal of GEI.
The concept of GEI is based on the grasp of global energy development law.Three major trends in the world energy landscape have been highlighted as follows: “high carbon” to “low carbon,” low efficiency to high efficiency,and local balance to wider-scale distribution.
From a theoretical perspective, GEI is an important component of the global energy outlook.A global energy outlook addresses world energy development issues with a global, historical, differentiated, and open perspective and stance, focusing on coordination between energy and politics, economy, society, environment, as well as overall development of various centralized and distributed energy facilities.Under this framework, GEI is the strategic focus of realizing a global energy outlook.GEI is an innovative energy system architecture with a high integration of energy,market, information, and services inspired by the concept of the Internet.It also shares typical attributes of the Internet,particularly in terms of equality, interactivity, openness, and resource sharing.
In terms of technology, GEI refers to the development of a globally interconnected, ubiquitous robust smart grid,supported by backbone ultra-high voltage (UHV) grids(channels), and predominantly dedicated to the transmission of clean energy (GEI=UHV Grid + Smart Grid + Clean Energy).GEI is thus built on three pillars: a large-scale deployment of clean energy, power transmission over large distances realized via UHV technology, and smart grid solutions leveraging intelligent monitoring and control at all voltage levels.Based on a comprehensive consideration of global energy distribution, clean energy development,energy supply and demand, energy transmission, and other factors, the development roadmap for GEI can be divided into three stages of intracontinental, transcontinental, and finally, global interconnection.
Moreover, it is worth noting that though the concept of GEI seems exceptionally ambitious, the technologies themselves are largely available or are currently under development.
2 Why will GEI become an effective solution to climate change?
As previously mentioned, solutions to address climate issues must originate from a global and comprehensive perspective; follow a low-carbon development path; and simultaneously ensure the achievement of other societal goals, focusing on energy security, equity, and justice issues related to social economic sustainable development.The second section has proven that an international climate regime alone is not sufficient to effectively address climate issues such that technological breakthroughs become another key to the Paris Agreement, concentrating on the use of renewables and improvement in energy efficiency.Based on these arguments, this section will illustrate why GEI can be an effective solution for climate issues.
2.1 GEI as sound technical support for a lowcarbon transition
The large-scale deployment of renewable energy in the global energy system (particularly in the power sector) is essential for CO2 reduction and a low-carbon transition.Nevertheless, the extant energy system is primarily built upon fossil energy, from power generation to consumption.Thus, the question: although the earth is abundant in renewable energy, how can we efficiently integrate it into the energy system and realize extensive application? Most renewable energy needs to be converted into electricity for efficient utilization; thus, the exploitation of renewable energy requires a significant structural transformation in the energy system, in which timely infrastructure deployment and revision of regulations are critical for cost-effective integration of massive renewables.Two major problems with large-scale deployment of renewables have been identified as follows.
The first is related to the uneven distribution of renewable energy.The global allocation of renewable resources such as high-quality wind and solar resources is concentrated in the polar and equatorial regions and large renewable bases on each continent; thus, the generation areas are hundreds to thousands of kilometers from the load centers.Nevertheless, the existing EHV power grids cannot meet the requirement for large-area development and clean electricity allocation in the future.Therefore, the means to improve the capacity of global power allocation to meet electricity demand across regions and realize massive deployment of renewables have become the crux of the global low-carbon transition.In this regard, GEI was created to establish an efficient global platform to achieve wider-scale optimization of clean power allocation through UHV transmission technology and robust Smart Grids to accommodate the complementary strengths of various power-generating areas; improve system-wide consumption of power generated by large renewable energy bases;achieve large-capacity, long-distance transmission, and ensure system safety and stability.
Another critical problem lies in the particular attributes of most renewable energy – randomness and intermittency.The availability of renewable energy often deeply depends on specific natural conditions.For example, wind energy is endowed with high stochastic volatility and intermittency such that large-scale wind power integration may cause severe challenges in load balancing, grid safety, and power quality.Therefore, new power generation technologies require a new power system that is flexible and allows for the incorporation of variable sources, solar and wind energy in particular.Consumption issues resulting from massive capacity building and extensive grid access can only be resolved by optimization allocation over wider areas to fully leverage the role of clean energy.As previously indicated, GEI can help solve the problem through widerscale optimization of clean electricity.In addition, other features of GEI, such as high intelligence and energy storage technologies, can also enable flexible grid access for various electricity sources and loads, while at the same time ensuring security and stability for network operations.
Taken together, GEI, given its holistic technological advantages in power generation (the key areas of innovation include wind, solar, ocean, distributed generation, and other renewables), grids (the operation control of UHV AC, UHV DC, submarine cables, superconducting transmission, and micro and large grids), energy storage, and information and communication (ICT), can serve as sound technical support for the massive integration of renewables into the energy system.As such, GEI will provide a technological foundation for the decarbonization of the energy system(particularly in power generation) and electrification, and thus help transform the high-carbon development path and achieve substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cuts.
2.2 GEI can ensure other societal goals and sustainable development
An effective solution to address climate change should not only be a reduction in carbon emissions, but also to consider other societal goals and sustainable development of humankind.Accordingly, GEI can also meet these requirements, focusing on energy security, equity, and justice issues and sustainable development.
Regarding energy security, GEI will alleviate the overdependence on fossil energy and promote the utilization of renewables, allowing for an energy supply switch from depletable sources to inexhaustible sources.With abundant renewable resources, the sharply growing demand in world energy can be satisfied.By 2050, 66,000 TWh of clean electric energy will be generated annually on a global basis, approximately 10 times more than that in 2010.As technology progresses, the cost of renewables will be increasingly lower.Electricity and other related energy services will be available at an affordable price and in sufficient quantities.In this sense, the longstanding problems of electricity and energy shortage will be resolved through GEI, thus promoting economic development in underdeveloped regions.Moreover, the distributed energy system of renewables can be applied to complement the daily energy demand in poor areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, thereby promoting sustainable development at a local level.
Furthermore, GEI can help enhance energy cooperation and energy security through “energy sharing” across regions.Taking energy cooperation in Northeast Asia(NEA) as an example, energy relations among regional countries (primarily China, Korea, and Japan) are generally far more conflicting and competitive in the traditional sense of fossil energy.Specifically, because China, Korea, and Japan are major energy consumers, there is an inherent contradiction among them when seeking fossil energy sources.In this regard, GEI may provide a cooperation platform for NEA countries.The full potential of regional power interconnection lies in the high-degree of renewable energy complementarity in NEA countries and a feasible technological base.Practically, power grid interconnections at the intracontinental level have been realized in Europe and North America.Therefore, through “resource sharing,”GEI may become a new driver for energy cooperation in NEA and promote energy security in this region.
As a whole, this section summarizes three main reasons why GEI can be an effective solution to address climate change as follows: (1) addressing climate change is itself a goal of GEI; (2) GEI can serve as sound technical support for a low-carbon transition and thus may lay the technological foundation to combat climate change; and(3) GEI can ensure other societal goals and the sustainable development of humankind.
3 Conclusions
Why can GEI become an effective solution to limit climate change? The three main reasons have been highlighted in this essay.First, tackling climate change is itself a goal of GEI.Second, GEI can lay a sound technical foundation for the decarbonization of the energy system and electrification, and thus help transform the high-carbon development path and achieve substantial GHG emission reductions.Third, GEI can also simultaneously meet other societal goals, particularly energy security, equity, and justice issues and sustainable development.
Notably, GEI is an unprecedented and ambitious concept and would be a long-term process to realized Nonetheless,GEI is China’s contribution to solving global energy problems and it is dedicated to the acceleration of the low-carbon energy transition and promoting the well-being of humankind.
Biographies
Junfeng Li is the First Director of the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation and he currently serves as the Chairman of the Academic Committee of NCSC.He won the Ninth Annual Zayed Future Energy Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.He also is a member of the National Energy Advisory Council, Expert Committee of the National High-tech Program, National Environmental Scientific Committee,and Expert Committee of the National Energy Administration Energy Internet, among others.He also serves as a consultant of lowcarbon development for the Beijing, Shanghai and Shanxi Provincial People’s Government.Meanwhile, he has been invited to be a professor and doctoral supervisor at Peking University and Renmin University in China and other colleges and universities in China.
Siyu Jiang is a third-year Ph.D.student majoring in international politics at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China.She recevied a master degree in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh, UK, 2015 and a bachelor degree in International Politics from Peking University,China, 2014.Her research interest is mainly focused on the international politics of energy and global climate governance.
(Editor Ya Gao)