A net-zero emissions strategy for China’s power sector using carbon-capture utilization and storage

Abstract Decarbonized power systems are critical to mitigate climate change, yet methods to achieve a reliable and resilient near-zero power system are still under exploration. This study develops an hourly power system simulation model considering high-resolution geological constraints for carbon-capture-utilization-and-storage to explore the optimal solution for a reliable and resilient near-zero power system. This is applied to 31 provinces in China by simulating 10,450 scenarios combining different electricity storage durations and interprovincial transmission capacities, with various shares of abated fossil power with carbon-capture-utilization-and-storage. Here, we show that allowing up to 20% abated fossil fuel power generation in the power system could reduce the national total power shortage rate by up to 9.0 percentages in 2050 compared with a zero fossil fuel system. A lowest-cost scenario with 16% abated fossil fuel power generation in the system even causes 2.5% lower investment costs in the network (or $16.8 billion), and also increases system resilience by reducing power shortage during extreme climatic events.