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Echo Xie

China could generate up to 13 per cent more electricity from solar energy if its air pollution could be cut to its 1960s levels, a new study has found.
Researchers from Switzerland, the Netherlands and China studied ground surface solar radiation data from 119 stations across China between 1960 and 2015, and emissions of sulphur dioxide and black carbon – a major component of fine particulate matter PM2.5 – in the same period.
They found the air pollutants, which absorb and scatter sunlight, were an important factor in what scientists refer to as “dimming”.
The implications could be significant as Beijing switches aggressively to solar and other clean energy to reduce its reliance on coal.




Based on the country’s solar power generation capacity in 2016, researchers estimated that if solar radiation could return to its 1960s levels, an additional 14 terawatt hours (TWh) of power would be generated.
“We find that reverting back to 1960s radiation levels in China could yield a 12 to 13 per cent increase in electricity generation,” the researchers wrote.
The gains would be even greater by 2030 if China is on track in its planned expansion of solar power production capacity. Researchers estimated that improved sunlight would deliver as much as 74TWh of extra power, or close to 1 per cent of China’s total electricity production by then.
“China is the world’s largest market for solar energy now, and China will play a crucial role in the global shift to clean energy, which we need to prevent catastrophic climate change,” said Stefan Pfenninger, a senior researcher at the department of environmental systems science at ETH Zürich and co-author of the study.




“While air pollution in some parts of the world, like Europe, may be less of an issue today than it was a few decades ago, it is still an urgent issue in many regions, such as China and India,” he said. “So understanding the effect of air pollution on solar power is important.”
The study was published this week in the Nature Energy journal.
China is the world’s largest producer of photovoltaic (PV) power. It had installed 170 gigawatts of solar power capacity by the end of 2018, up from 77GW in 2016, and by 2030 its installed PV capacity is expected to reach 400GW.
In 2016, the Chinese government issued a plan for non-fossil energies to account for 20 per cent of the nation’s total energy consumption by 2030 – the level it had committed to in the 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change.
Previous studies using about a decade of satellite-derived data had found severe aerosol pollution over China reduced the solar radiation that reached ground level. The new study drew on data from a much longer period, compiled by researchers at China’s National Meteorological Information Centre.
“Having ground-measured data on how much sunlight is reaching the Earth surface across China, going back to the 1960s, was an unprecedented and uniquely powerful source of data to work from,” Pfenninger said.




The study showed that, with growing emissions of sulphur dioxide and black carbon across the country since the 1960s, ground surface solar radiation had been steadily reduced – known as dimming.
The trend began to bottom out only around 2005, when Beijing began actively tackling its air pollution problem. On average the PV potential decreased by between 11 and 15 per cent between 1960 and 2015.
In projecting the additional gain in solar electricity what would be possible by returning to 1960s levels of air quality, researchers took into account the differing impacts on both large-scale solar farms in the sparsely populated western China and small distributed solar power production systems in eastern urban China.
China’s solar panel industry faces a year of reckoning
According to New Energy Outlook 2019, released last month by BloombergNEF, a research consultancy, China is expected to have 48 per cent of its electricity generated by solar and wind power by 2050. By then, it is expected to have 1.3TW of solar PV and 1.2TW of wind power installed – 17 per cent of all PV and a third of all wind power installed globally.
“I see the development of solar power as a competition with pollution,” Zhou Lang, a professor at the institute of photovoltaics at Nanchang University, said.
“Pollution affects solar radiation, but the development of photovoltaics will gradually eradicate pollution. We hope photovoltaics will win in the end.”


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Energy

China ‘could produce 13 per cent more solar power’ if its skies were as clean as in the 1960s

Pingjing photovoltaic power station and Dahaizi wind power station in Guizhou province, built as part of China’s efforts to switch to green energy. Photo: Xinhua

What trade war? How China and US bonded over soccer and a nuclear ‘man-made sun’

A vacuum vessel inside the EAST Tokamak device Hefei’s a facility for research on “artificial sun” on May 19, 2014. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Plasma Physics

This handout picture taken on May 16, 2018 and released on April 22, 2019 by Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Plasma Physics, shows the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) device, also known as the "artificial sun", at a laboratory in Hefei, east China's Anhui province. - A ground-breaking fusion reactor built by Chinese scientists is underscoring Beijing's determination to be at the core of clean energy technology, as it eyes a fully-functioning plant by 2050. (Photo by HANDOUT / CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES / AFP) / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: China-nuclear-fusion-science-energy, FOCUS by Kelly WANG RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

A general view of the control centre for Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), a nuclear fusion reactor dubbed as "artificial sun", in Hefei, Anhui province, China July 25, 2018. Picture taken July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT.

Chinese and American physicists after playing soccer together at a fusion research facility in southeastern China. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Smog in northern China rises in first four months of 2019 as anti-pollution drive loses ‘momentum’

Pollution readings in Hebei rose 8 per cent between January and April. Photo: Simon Song

A view of the CBD area in China's capital city Beijing in a heavy air polluted day, Apr. 02, 2018.  AQI (air quality index) reached over 300 in the day)  02APR18 SCMP / Simon Song

China’s fight for clean air gets more complicated after scientists link fall in PM2.5 pollutants to rise in crop-damaging ground-level ozone

China has been aggressively targeting factory emissions as part of its efforts to cut PM2.5 pollution. Photo: Reuters

(190106) -- BEIJING, Jan. 6, 2019 (Xinhua) -- Xinhua Headlines:Steel City Still Vibrant with Olympic Rings Retired worker of Shougang Hu Yulan (R) and a photographer take pictures of the to-be-closed steel factory of Shougang Group in Beijing, capital of China, May 30, 2010. (Xinhua/Li Wenming)

scmp

A woman wearing a face mask rides a bicycle on a bridge in front of the financial district of Pudong, which is covered in smog, during a polluted day in Shanghai, China November 28, 2018. REUTERS/Aly Song

News

China

Politics

Science

Effect of pollution that absorbs and scatters sunlight is made clearer by ‘unprecedented’ data, researchers say
Study underlines the potential rewards as Beijing aims to switch from coal to solar and other clean energy


Effect of pollution that absorbs and scatters sunlight is made clearer by ‘unprecedented’ data, researchers say after study underlining the potential rewards as Beijing aims to switch from coal to solar and other clean energy.


China pollution

Environment