China: The Danish Energy Agency presents EU’s renewable energy development status, policies and outlook to broad Chinese audience

12 October, the Danish Energy Agency and Energinet.dk participated in a meeting in Beijing with focus on renewable energy and climate policies, development and outlook of RE in respectively EU, Germany, USA and not least China.The Danish Energy Agency presented the European case while Energinet.dk made a presentation on power market reform in Denmark and EU. The meeting was hosted by CNREC with representations from international experts (NREL, Lawrence Berkley, GiZ, Energinet.dk, the Royal Danish Embassy and DEA) as well as key Chinese participants from NEA, ERI, CNREC and Chinese universities (Tsinghua and NCEPU)

The opening speeches from both Mr. Li Peng, the Deputy-director of New Energy Department of NEA and Director at CNREC Mr. Wang Zhongying focused on China’s pressing need to formulate new energy policies that can establish better incentive structures and improve the institutional setup to handle the planned RE build-out in China. Their assessment was that today China’s key challenge for the future development of RE is much less a technical challenge and much more an institutional one. 

Mr. Li Peng highlighted that China is projected to curtail around 40 TWh renewable energy (15 % of production) in 2015 – this is roughly equivalent to the total Danish power production in 2014 - including both thermal and renewable production. Without new energy policies targeted at handle more renewable in the future China could have difficulties in reaching their 2020 RE targets.

The Danish Energy Agency presented EU’s 20-20-20 plan and gave an overview of how well the different member states are on track. Europe’s lesson learned on the failed ETS in EU was given together with suggestions for China’s current considerations regarding establishing a nation-wide ETS. Further, EU’s 2030 targets and 2050 vision was presented to the audience as well as some country specific key learnings from energy policy development in Europe and industry implications. Energinet.dk followed up with an excellent presentation on the power market challenges in Denmark and Europe in the context of ever increasing share of RE and security of supply. The learnings and experiences from Denmark with securing reliable power production with more integration of RE was shared and both presentations prompted many relevant questions and comments from the audience.

ERI/CNREC presented China’s RE development status and plans towards 2020 and 2030. In particular suggested key actions for the next 5 years (13th 5 year plan) were given. The key mechanism to aid the development was new legislation to promote RE, support the market for distributed energy and more efficient coordination.

The meeting presented a great opportunity for the different participants to share views on the future development of RE as well as asking questions on both targets and not least energy policy experiences in respectively Europe (Denmark / Germany), USA and China. Sharing Europe’s much longer experience with RE integration and energy policy formulation together with Denmark’s valuable knowledge of handling and planning for a RE dominated energy system provides very valuable lessons for China.  
 

Read more new about the meeting at CIFF's website here

Information materials on the Danish-Chinese Cooperation, Visit CIFF's website

Laust Riemann
Specialkonsulent
Center for Global Rådgivning og Forhandling
Tlf.: 25 72 82 98
LRI@ens.dk