Across the world, industry is regarded as a hard-to-decarbonise sector, and an emissions priority. In China it’s responsible for over 65% of its energy consumption and 70% of carbon emissions. Ji Chen and Shuyi Li of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) look at the highlights of China’s efforts, and reference them against the RMI’s Reinventing Fire: China analysis. Efficiency, electrification, CCUS, hydrogen and “recycle and reuse” all play an important role and good progress is being made. For example, China’s target of waste steel (recycling it uses 60% less energy than regular steel) accounting for 20% of crude steel production has been met over two years ahead of schedule. But challenges remain across the industry sector.
The industrial sector is a major energy consumer and carbon emitter in China. For years, China’s industrial sector has been responsible for more than 65 percent of the nation’s energy consumption and more than 70 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions, and thus has always been the main focus of China’s climate change mitigation efforts. Industry is regarded as a hard-to-abate sector in terms of carbon emissions due to the complexity of industrial production processes and the high costs of carbon reduction.
There is an international consensus that energy efficiency improvements, reduced demand for carbon-intensive products and services, and deployment of decarbonisation technologies are the three main strategies for deep decarbonisation in the industrial sector. Remarkable progress has been made in all these areas in China. China’s industrial sector is moving toward deep decarbonisation, as can be seen in the following trends.
1. Industrial energy efficiency improvements bring great energy savings, but more potential needs to be unlocked
The industrial sector has long been the biggest contributor to energy efficiency improvements in China. Over the years, the industrial sector has seen a decline in energy consumption intensity that is higher than the national average, and the sector has focused on improving energy efficiency for promoting green and low-carbon development.
At the policy level, in 2018, seven ministries and commissions jointly revised and released The Administrative Measures on Energy Conservation in Key Energy-Using Departments, replacing the previous version issued by the State Economic and Trade Commission in 1999. The updated version establishes stricter industrial energy efficiency improvements with more detailed management measures, reward and punishment mechanisms, and legal responsibilities.
In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued The Key Work Plan for Industrial Energy Conservation Supervision in 2018, which covers more than 5,500 enterprises in various industries, focusing on the supervision of energy-intensive industries such as the petrochemical, chemical, and paper industries. Its issuance has also promoted the improvement of energy efficiency in key industries and regions.
However, with the continuous implementation of industrial energy efficiency measures and the improvement of energy efficiency actions, the space for industrial energy conservation has been further compressed. The decline of energy consumption per unit of industrial added value was 4.6 percent in China in 2017, and the rate of decline is expected to decrease to 3.5 percent in 2018. Further efforts are still needed to unlock the potential of energy efficiency improvements in the industrial sector.
2. The scaling and standardisation of “recycle and reuse” drives the reduction of demand for carbon-intensive products and services
Recycling and utilisation of waste steel and plastic products are two examples of the recycling and reuse of industrial products, both of which are material-intensive.
Recycling of waste steel is an important means of reducing the demand for new raw steel. Using waste steel for steelmaking saves more than 60 percent of the energy used in the regular process. The total consumption of waste steel in China was 141 million tons in the first nine months of 2018, 38.9 percent higher than in the same period in 2017.
This helped achieve the goal proposed in the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Waste Steel Industry of having waste steel consumption account for 20 percent of crude steel production two years and three months ahead of schedule. In 2018, 252 enterprises, with an annual processing capacity of more than 70 million tons, met the entry requirements for the waste steel processing industry, accounting for one-third of the total waste steel available for the year.
The plastic industry is also continuously promoting standardised, scalable, and sustainable development. In 2018, four national standards and policies were issued: the Series National Standards on Express Delivery Packaging, the Technical Specification for Waste Plastics Recycling, Interim Measures on Assessment and Management of Comprehensive Utilisation of Industrial Solid Waste Resources, and the National Products Catalogue of Comprehensive Utilisation of Industrial Solid Waste Resources. These also enhance the efficiency of resource utilisation.
3. With the ongoing energy transition, the electrification rate in the industrial sector is expected to increase
Electricity playing a major role in both energy supply and demand is a clear trend in China’s movement toward a low-carbon green energy future. According to the 2018 Chinese Renewable Energy Outlook, the electrification rate of the end-use sector needs to rise from 24 percent in 2017 to 53 percent in 2050 to keep the global temperature rise below 2℃ above preindustrial levels.
Electrification in industrial production processes is an essential part of the energy transition in the industrial sector, and in the country as a whole. The switch from industrial boilers and industrial coal kilns to electric boilers contributes to the reduction of direct coal burning. It not only lowers land occupation and labor costs and improves product quality, it also helps to achieve lower-carbon emissions.
For China, the proportion of coal consumption has continued to shrink while the level of electrification in energy consumption has significantly improved in the industrial sector. According to Rocky Mountain Institute’s Reinventing Fire: China analysis, the industrial electrification rate should reach 39 percent in 2050 compared to 19 percent in 2010. The potential of substituting electricity for fossil fuels is expected to be realised.
4. Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage pilot projects are booming, but high cost and energy consumption remain the biggest challenges
Along with energy mix optimisation and energy savings, carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) is a crucial carbon emission reduction technology. By the end of 2018, 21 large-scale operational CCUS facilities had been established globally, with a total annual CO2 capture capacity of 37 million tons. In 2018, demonstration projects were established in China in the areas of CO2 capture and storage, oil displacement, and chemical production using captured CO2, mainly by coal-fired power plants and coal chemical enterprises. This is an indication of the country’s increasing interest in and focus on CCUS technology and R&D.
However, from the perspective of commercial scalability, the CCUS industry still faces several major challenges, including high cost, insufficient technical capacity, and imperfect mechanisms for policy, legal, and cross-sector coordination.
5. Hydrogen utilisation flourishes and has the potential to be the leading edge of industrial decarbonisation
Due to its wide availability, capacity for storage, and ease of delivery, hydrogen energy has obvious advantages in terms of the use of clean energy and energy scalability. It also has great potential for promoting decarbonisation in the industrial sector. In 2018, hydrogen energy utilisation in relevant Chinese industries attracted increasing attention, with focus on hydrogen fuel cells in the transportation sector. The development of hydrogen-related industries led by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will promote large-scale utilisation of hydrogen energy in the industrial sector.
In addition to being directly used as a fuel, hydrogen is often used as a reducing agent in the steel industry and in the chemical industry for hydrotreating, hydrocracking, and desulfurisation. The Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology (HYBRIT) project launched in Sweden in 2018 is intended to replace the coke traditionally used in iron making with hydrogen produced by renewable power. If the project succeeds, it will produce a major innovation in the steel industry and can be expected to reduce the total carbon emissions of Sweden and Finland by 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively.
The year 2018 was an important milestone in the development of the hydrogen energy industry in China. The National Alliance of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell was established in 2018, and the number of pilot projects increased significantly. For example, hydrogen energy industrial parks started operations in several regions, including Wuhan, Shanxi, Shanghai, and Liaoning.
On the policy side, the Development Plan of the Hydrogen Industry of Wuhan was issued, and similar policies are under preparation in cities such as Shenzhen, Beijing, and Guangzhou. It is worth noting that, despite the huge potential and rapid development momentum of the hydrogen energy industry in China, bottleneck challenges still urgently need to be overcome. For example, top-level policies need to be enhanced, crucial technologies need breakthrough improvements, and the infrastructure needs to be scaled up.
RMI is dedicated to helping promote green transformation in China’s industrial cities, develop and communicate international best practices, and smooth the way for industrial cities to improve their competitiveness through the implementation of low-carbon development strategies. We expect that China’s industrial sector can fully achieve a comprehensive low-carbon transition through further facilitation of carbon reduction measures.
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Dr Ji Chen is a manager in Rock Mountain Institute’s China program
Shuyi Li is an associate in Rock Mountain Institute’s China program
This article is published with permission
Daniel Williams says
We need to produce electrolysers at an industrial scale. In Europe, much of the energy demand is going to be met by floating offshore wind, which is expected to reach a price of €40/MWh by 2030, eventually reaching €30/MWh. The problem is that for industry (steel and concrete), long distance transport (mainly road freight, shipping), seasonal building heat, and gas turbines – the only option is hydrogen. This represents a large percentage of Europe’s energy use.
There are two ways we can produce this hydrogen: either by pre-combustion carbon capture (using new GHR + ATR reformers, which are 80% efficient, and the carbon is transported via pipelines from industry clusters) or via wind & solar farms coupled with electrolysis.
As a previous Energy Post article by Frank Wouters and Prof. Ad van Wijk outline, the cost of hydrogen should eventually get to €30/MWh (€9/mmbtu) which is the same price as natural gas today.
By combining a mixture of curtailed electricity (at zero cost) for 30% of the RES, with peak rate electricity, the cost of hydrogen produced can reach this figure. This reduces the need for electricity infrastructure; although a low price for electrolysers is needed. At scale this is expected to be easily achievable, however the lower the combined RES + electrolyser cost, the lower the cost of hydrogen produced.
International efforts to industrialise the manufacture of electrolysers could greatly expedite this process, and allow more countries to replace natural gas.