Energy integration crucial to achieve carbon neutrality

Energy integration is crucial for the world to achieve low-carbon and green development, business leaders and experts said at a sub-forum in Boao Forum for Asia, on Wednesday in Hainan province.

"The core of sustainable development lies in high-quality development, innovation and integration, and integration is of vital importance," said Song Hailiang, chairman of Energy China Group.

To address the challenge of global climate change, more than 130 countries and regions have proposed the goal of "carbon neutrality", therefore, green, low-carbon and sustainable development has already become an international goal.

Under this circumstance, the production process, technology research and service management in the energy sector are all required to be built on three dimensions - sharing, green and digital economy, which lie as the basis and the guideline for industrial development, Song highlighted.

Taking the municipal construction as an example, Song mentioned the "integration of seven networks" - a comprehensive solution that effectively integrate power, transportation, water, information, ecology, industry and culture in a city's overall management.

Liu Jizhen, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, emphasized that energy integration also means giving full play to the advantages of both traditional and new energy, making it effectively support people's life in a reliable, stable and safe way.

"New energy such as wind and solar power, although produce low carbon emission in use, are of obvious drawbacks - intermittency, volatility and inconsistency; while social energy supplies require stability, controllability and adjustability," said Xiang Haiping, chief engineer of the National Energy Administration.

Therefore, he highlighted that the process of de-carbonization cannot be simply described as "the elimination of one and the increase of the other", but deeply integrating the new and traditional power in an optimized combination pattern.

"Gradual phasing out traditional energy needs to be a long-term endeavor, and it should be based on the safe and reliable replacement of new energy", Xiang added.

In transportation and construction sectors, energy integration also nurtured great potential and development opportunities, such as hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, roadside charging pillars and the rooftop photovoltaic.

To push forward energy integration development to a higher level, market mechanism plays a vital role, according to Xiang.

"We should make greater use of market mechanisms, to speed up the construction of green electricity market, build up an emission rights trading system and promote low-carbon consumption," he said.