As the world belatedly sets about reducing carbon emissions, the struggle between coal power and renewables for the future of China\u2019s electricity system has garnered a lot of attention. But if China is to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 and also reduce them significantly by mid-century, it must get other areas of the economy to stop burning fossil fuels. One way China is doing this is by promoting the use of electricity instead.<\/p>\n
Electrification is hard and takes time. Amongst other things, the government must work with industry to replace inefficient coal boilers, get into millions of people\u2019s homes to replace coal heating<\/a>, and put in place policies to get companies to develop electric vehicles and consumers to buy them<\/a>.<\/p>\n Doing these things now would make those parts of the economy effectively low carbon as the power grid gets cleaner.<\/p>\n As part of its 13th<\/sup> Five Year Plan<\/a>, China set itself a clear target for electrification. The government wants to increase electricity use in final energy consumption from 25.8% in 2016 to 27% in 2020. The government worked this out at about 450 terawatt hours over the five years (equivalent to the electrical output from the Three Gorges Dam in that period).<\/p>\n Annual data from 2016<\/a> onwards and estimated figures for 2019 and 2020, suggest China will hit its electrification target in early 2020. As of 2018, it had implemented<\/a> about 110,000 projects that reduced small-scale coal-burning by 600 million tonnes. The main gains were seen in electrification of industrial processes and agricultural production.China\u2019s target for electrification<\/h2>\n
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