Dramatic reductions in solar, wind, and battery storage costs create new opportunities to reduce emissions and costs in China{\textquoteright}s electricity sector, beyond current policy goals. This study examines the cost, reliability, emissions, public health, and employment implications of increasing the share of non-fossil fuel ({\textquotedblleft}carbon free{\textquotedblright}) electricity generation in China to 80\% by 2035. The analysis uses state-of-the-art modeling with high resolution load, wind, and solar inputs. The study finds that achieving an 80\% carbon free electricity system in China by 2035 could reduce wholesale electricity costs, relative to a current policy baseline, while maintaining high levels of reliability, reducing deaths from air pollution, and increasing employment. In our 80\% scenario, wind and solar generation capacity reach 3 TW and battery storage capacity reaches 0.4 TW by 2035, implying a rapid scale up in these resources that will require changes in policy targets, markets and regulation, and land use policies.
}, year = {2022}, month = {07/2022}, note = {An open-access journal article about this research published in iScience can be viewed\ here.
}, language = {eng}, }