How Hong Kong can turn from laggard to leader in solar energy use
Gavin Edwards and Sarah Keung offer two ways by which Hong Kong can cut carbon emissions - and begin to catch up with the leading Asian cities in the adoption of renewable energy
An "all-star" cast of Nobel Prize-winning scientists and leading academics descended on Hong Kong last month to share the latest science on climate change and sustainability, and to call for urgent action and solutions.
At the 4th Nobel Laureates Symposium on Global Sustainability, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, unveiled new findings of various climate tipping points. The disappearing Greenland ice sheet and the decimation of coral reefs were just a couple of examples of the nightmare scenarios he presented.
It is not all doom and gloom, though. World Bank president Jim Yong Kim urged the world to move to zero net emissions of greenhouse gases "as quickly as possible", while Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying explained that "Hong Kong attaches great importance to combating climate change". This is all very timely, because the Hong Kong government has recently begun a consultation to solicit opinion on how to regulate the electricity market, which is the city's single biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Today, local electricity generation relies almost 100 per cent on fossil fuels, using imported gas from Turkmenistan via a pipeline through mainland China, and imported coal shipped from Indonesia. Meanwhile, the sun and wind that falls on our territory remains unused - renewable energy sources account for less than 1 per cent of our electricity.
So how have our utilities responded to the challenge of climate change? The answer: CLP Power has just announced it wants to install two additional generators at its Tuen Mun power station, designed to burn gas for the next 30 years. So, as other parts of Asia begin to embrace energy efficiency and renewable energy, our utilities' response is to ensure that we will be burning more fossil fuels for decades to come.
Hong Kong is lagging behind the rest of Asia in terms of the development of renewable energy. For example, the solar systems installed in Singapore and Seoul can provide 11 times and 23 times more electricity respectively than Hong Kong's solar system. And both cities have rolled out road maps to substantially increase the installation of renewables.
Something does not add up. Taipei, Shenzhen and Seoul are busy installing solar panels on their rooftops, so why isn't Hong Kong? To answer this question, you have to turn the clock back to the 1960s, when a set of scheme of control agreements was developed to regulate our electricity market. The framework was a unique, made-in-Hong Kong approach to meeting the city's growing electricity demand. The agreements provided a high, guaranteed rate of return, motivating power utilities to invest in fixed assets. They served us well in the last century, helping to power our city.