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The rapid growth of photovoltaic (PV) installations in recent years has largely been driven by government incentive schemes that make PV an attractive option for building owners seeking to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs. As government incentives are reduced or withdrawn the incorporation of battery storage, to lower building electricity grid imports through increased on-site PV self-consumption, is an option to sustain rooftop PV uptake. This study combines a life cycle assessment approach and discounted cash flow analysis to assess the CO 2 and financial impact of adding battery storage to a PV assemblage in the context of future incentive withdrawal, electricity system decarbonisation and changing technology costs. An example non-domestic building in the UK with a 20 kW mono-crystalline silicon PV and lithium-ion battery storage is modelled. With electricity grid decarbonisation in line with the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the PV and battery system here reduces the building's CO 2 emissions by 17% (19tCO 2 ) compared with the grid-only reference over a 30year lifetime. The analysis also highlights that adding battery storage does not necessarily increase C0 2 savings achieved by PV alone for the building, if grid decarbonisation is considered. PV systems without batteries in the UK are however found to be viable in 2020 without government incentives. For system considered here the battery costs of <£334/kWh available capacity are needed in 2020 for batteries to positively affect the financial performance of PV. The study therefore concludes that UK battery costs have to continue to reduce rapidly, or additional revenue from providing electricity system services is needed to make batteries financially attractive in lower insolation areas like the UK. Policy to reduce electricity system CO 2 through building integrated battery uptake requires better understanding of the net system CO 2 impact in line with other changes in electricity generation and demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To guide the adjustment of the electricity policies of the 13th Five-year Plan and the present market-oriented reforms, this paper performs a scenario analysis of the CO 2 emissions from China's electric power industry. By using a logarithmic linear equation to explain the relationship between CO 2 emissions and their influence factors, a hybrid model to forecast the “natural” development of the explanatory variables, and emission-relative data from 2001 to 2013 to estimate the equation parameters, five scenarios are designed, and the CO 2 emissions of each scenario are forecasted for the period of 2016–2030. On the basis of the modeling results, the sensitivity and contribution of each variable are also measured. Empirical analysis draws the following conclusions. (1) The electric power industry of China cannot easily reach its CO 2 emission peak before 2030. This will impose considerable pressure on the Chinese government to realize its emission mitigation target. (2) Compared with the non-fossil energy share in electricity generation, the CO 2 emissions from China's electric power industry are more sensitive to the changes in total electricity consumption and thermal power generation efficiency. (3) The increase in total electricity consumption is the single most important contributor to CO 2 emission growth from the electric power industry of China. (4) To mitigate future CO 2 emissions from the electric power industry, the Chinese government should optimize the industrial export structure and enhance its awareness of the increase in household electricity consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the method of decomposition analysis, and briefly discusses how it has been used in relation to patterns of energy consumption. It then uses decomposition analysis to discuss two radically different scenarios of UK energy use through to 2050, both of which result in a 60% reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide. The ratios of the decomposition analysis are discussed in relation to the social and economic drivers of energy use, and the kinds of changes in these drivers which would be necessary to bring the ratios about. In this way decomposition analysis is shown to be a useful technique both to generate quantitative scenarios of this kind, and to cast light on the socio-economic conditions which they imply. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]