China Could Issue Renewable Portfolio Standard by Year-End

 

A draft version of China’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) has been submitted to the State Council for review and could be approved before the end of this year, according to Ren Dongming, director of the Center for Renewable Energy Development under the National Development and Reform Commission. 

The RPS is a regulation designed to ensure that a specific share of national power generation comes from renewable energy sources. Under the RPS, electricity generated from renewable sources can be traded across regions and regional power grids to offset regional differences in renewable energy resources. 

The RPS will require local governments and grid companies to ensure that renewable energy quotas are fulfilled. Regions that meet their quota will be able to calculate their renewable energy consumption excluding hydropower as a reduction of coal energy consumption for power generation. Regions are usually scored based on their ability to keep energy consumption within set targets. For those regions that fail to meet their quotas, the unmet part of their quota after conversion to an energy saving calculation will be deducted from the actual energy saving score. 

Once the RPS is approved and implanted it is expected to push local authorities, especially eastern provinces with high energy consumption, to develop renewable energy and increase installations, pushing up distributed solar generation. 

China’s two power grid operators are also likely to improve the connectivity of wind and solar power to their power grids, which has lagged behind the pace of new installations in recent years and resulted in wastage. 

Translated and edited by ReneSola. Original source: Solarbe.