Who does what in China’s new energy vehicle industry?

This paper provides an overview of the Chinese new energy vehicle industry and discusses the role of state in the industry’s development. Chinese policies have aimed to promote the development of new energy technologies and to reduce the consumer price of new energy vehicles. Chinese authorities have also been concerned about the balance between collaboration and competition in the sector, since most key actors are owned by the state. One solution has been the establishment of a number of industry alliances linking auto enterprises, universities and research institutes, to promote both collaboration (within each alliance) and competition (between alliances).     

China’s natural gas reform: why and how

Natural gas is playing an extremely significant role in implementing green and low-carbon economy in China, while its share in energy mix only accounted for 6.4% of China’s total energy consumption in 2016. The Chinese government began to make a series of policies and measures to catalyze natural gas production and consumption for dealing with severe air pollution and optimizing energy structure. Some key issues such as highly regulated natural gas pricing system, the monopoly of natural gas pipelines, and the dominance of state-owned oil companies are substantially existing to be addressed in the forthcoming natural gas reforms. The dilemma of reforms is analyzed in this article and the related reform solutions are to be explored in the deregulation of Chinese natural gas pricing mechanism, separation of state-owned companies’ pipeline, and nondiscriminatory third-party access. The results show that Chinese natural gas reform is destined to be a long-lasting war.     

China’s energy—challenges and strategies

In this century, China started facing five major challenges in the energy field: energy supply, shortage of liquid fuel, environmental pollution, green house gas (GHG) emission, and energy supply in rural areas. In this paper, the Chinese energy development strategy and general technical scheme (including energy conservation, utilization of coal, alternative fuel and renewable energy) are discussed, and some key scientific problems in the fundamental research of energy are put forward.     

Customers’ purchase intention for hydrogen vehicle and industrial agglomeration: Evidence from Jiangsu Province,China

The current research concentrated upon customers' consuming behaviors towards hydrogen vehicle in Jiangsu province, China. This paper discussed the associations between factors related to competitions in industries and customers' consuming behaviors. Different from previous literature, the present study explored whether industrial agglomeration would affect customers willingness to purchase hydrogen vehicles. Results from empirical analysis showed that industrial structure height in a city was positively associated with customers’ acceptance towards hydrogen vehicles. This indicated that in addition to economic and environmental factors, the agglomeration of industrial activities from industry competition would increase customers purchase intention for hydrogen vehicle.     

Challenges and countermeasures of China’s energy security

China is now a major consumer and importer of energy, and its choices and policies will increasingly affect the rest of the world. This paper analyses the key features of China’s energy policy as it faces the prospect of possible challenges to its energy security given the increasing reliance on fuel imports and the need to transform its energy to meet the requirements of a modern, fast-growing economy. The paper examines whether the current energy mix is appropriate and sustainable, and considers the China’s policymakers new emphasis on energy efficiency, conservation, renewable energy and the shift to natural gas the primary energy source. It examines the internal and external constraints on China’s energy policy and considers the strategic dilemmas arising from China’s increasing involvement in international energy markets. It concludes that both the domestic and international implications of China’s search for energy security will confront policymakers with hard choices that will affect not only energy policy, but also China’s geopolitical grand strategy.     

A win–win marginal rent analysis for operator and consumer under battery leasing mode in China electric vehicle market

Recently battery leasing has been introduced into the market by automobile manufacturers and power suppliers due to its potential to reduce the purchase cost of electric vehicles (EVs). However, the profit prospect of battery leasing is still uncertain. This paper takes the views of both the operators and consumers and calculates the ‘win–win’ marginal rent, which not only ensures the profitability of operators, but also allows consumers a lower expenditure than using Internal combustion engine vehicles (ICVs) and EVs with embedded batteries. Battery cost, vehicle weight, gasoline and electricity price, and the discount rate have impacts on the rent. Battery cost plays a dominant role and a battery cost >5 ¥/W h fails to enable the survival of battery leasing to all types of EVs. Battery leasing would be more competitive when focusing on heavier EVs. At least one of the three thresholds is required for the existence of rent pricing range for a 1000 kg EV: gasoline retail price >6 ¥/L, electricity price <0.6 ¥/kW h, or the discount rate <7%. Typically, the feasible battery rent range is 0.34–0.38 ¥/W h/year for a 1000 kg EV under the present battery cost 2 ¥/W h and China current gasoline and electricity prices.     

China’s emissions embodied in exports: How regional and trade heterogeneity matter

Trade facilitates the shifts of emissions from one place to another. Although studies have shown that regionally disaggregated model and model that distinguishes processing exports at the national level are necessary to estimate the embodied emissions in China's exports, no study evaluates this issue by simultaneously taking both regional and trade heterogeneity into account. To fill this gap, we re-estimate the CO₂ emissions embodied in China’s exports at both regional and industrial level, by using the newly-developed inter-regional input-output (IRIOP) model that distinguishes processing trade from other trade at the regional level. Results show that compared to the IRIOP model, the traditional multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model has overestimated the environmental loss from exports by 14%–25% in 2002 and 7%–20% in 2012 for different regions. The largest bias is found in regions and industries with the highest processing export shares. Therefore, the IRIOP model gives more accurate accounting on the regional environmental loss due to national exports and thus is important for establishing effective emission mitigation policies.     

Humankind’s detour toward sustainability: past,present, and future of renewable energies and electric power generation

Renewable energies have been the primary energy source in the history of the human race. During the last 200 years, industrialized countries have shifted their energy consumption toward fossil fuels. Contemporary electric power generation is based on non-renewable resources such as oil, coal, and nuclear power. New efficient and cost-effective small-scale renewable energy generation options are commercially available today. Market distortions are to be overcome in order to make renewable energies cost-competitive in today’s economic environment. Social, environmental and also economic reasons will reverse the worldwide primary energy use back to renewables and thus reapproach a sustainable economic system based on traditional and new high-tech technologies.     

Energy efficiency and productivity change of China’s iron and steel industry: Accounting for undesirable outputs

This paper used data from 50 enterprises in China’s iron and steel industry to evaluate their energy efficiency and productivity change. The study first used a conventional data envelopment analysis model and the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) to measure the energy efficiency and productivity change over the period 2001–2008. The results indicated inefficiency in many of the plants: The average energy efficiency was only 61.1%. The annual growth rate of productivity was 7.96% over this period and technical change was the main contributor to this growth. The research then took undesirable outputs into consideration by using the Malmquist–Luenberger Productivity Index (MLPI) to explore the productivity change from 2006 to 2008. Omitting undesirable outputs would result in biased efficiency change and technical change. This paper also claimed that environmental regulation has a potentially positive impact on technical change.     

Why Did Better Place Fail?: Range anxiety,interpretive flexibility,and electric vehicle promotion in Denmark and Israel

With almost $1 billion in funding, Better Place was poised to become one of the most innovative companies in the electric mobility market. The system Better Place proposed had two novel prongs; first, to reduce the cost of batteries, and second, to reduce range anxiety, public infrastructure concerns, and long charging times. Yet, despite this seemingly strong combination, Better Place failed to make any progress in Denmark and Israel, the first two markets it operated in, and subsequently declared bankruptcy, selling off its collective assets for less than $500,000. Drawing from science and technology studies and the notion of “interpretive flexibility,” this paper posits several reasons to explain the failure of Better Place, including that Denmark is not as “green” as it seems nor is the Israeli market as attractive as believed, and that Better Place's solution to charging time and range anxiety resolved a psychological, not a functional, barrier of the general public to adopt electric vehicles. Before investigating these two reasons, the paper presents a short history of Better Place and explores the contours of its operations in Denmark and Israel. It then discusses why Better Place “failed” across both countries before concluding with implications for energy planning, policy, and analysis.     

Energy sources and multi-input DC-DC converters used in hybrid electric vehicle applications – A review

With the drastic inclination towards reduction of atmospheric issues, hybrid electric vehicles are becoming the major alternative for internal combustion engine vehicles. Compared to internal combustion engine vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles are remarkable in terms of efficiency, durability and acceleration capability. However, the major drawback of hybrid electric vehicle is energy storage capability. An electric vehicle requires the energy sources with high specific power (W/kg) and high specific energy (Wh/kg) to reduce the charging time. Generally, fuel cells, batteries, ultracapacitors, flywheels and regenerative braking systems are used in hybrid electric vehicles as energy sources and energy storage devices. All these energy storage devices are connected to the different DC-DC converter topologies to increase the input source voltage. From the recent past, most of the hybrid electric vehicles are using multi-input converters to connect more than one energy source in order to improve the efficiency and reliability of the vehicle. This survey presents an assessment of present and future trend of energy storage devices and different multi-input DC-DC converter topologies that are being used in hybrid electric vehicles. In addition, different electric vehicle architectures are also discussed.     

China’s wind,biomass and solar power generation: What the situation tells us?

As the largest developing country, China has abundant wind, biomass and solar energy resources. Under the large demand for electricity and the shortage of fossil energy, it is essential to develop renewable energy generation in China. This paper analyzes the resources, scale, market operation, profitability and policies of China’s wind, biomass and solar power generation and gives a discussion of the investment risks in the current situation. It is expected that the analysis in this paper could be helpful for the potential investors to make decision.     

Building low carbon communities in China: The role of individual’s behaviour change and engagement

Low carbon sustainability has been addressed in China’s national development strategies. This research explores individual behaviour change and engagement in building low carbon communities in China through a case study looking at the building of a low carbon campus at Fudan University, Shanghai. Individual behaviour directly influences the overall energy consumption and carbon emissions on Fudan University’s campus. Even though relevant polices have been issued for energy conservation, the energy consumption increased by 5% every year, which suggests that the “top-down” approach telling students and staff “what to do” does not work effectively. Based on a comprehensive method which includes the individual and social aspects related to the energy behaviour, the research analyses the promotion of individual engagement in building a low carbon campus through behaviour change based on four main aspects: (1) awareness raising and behaviour forming; (2) approaches to encourage behaviour change; (3) beyond the barriers and the constraints; and (4) systems and mechanisms for the long-term engagement. A low carbon management system is proposed for not only addressing management and technical solutions at the university level, but also based on the contributions from behaviour changes in establishing a low carbon campus at Fudan University at the individual level.     

Political and institutional analysis of the successes and failures of China’s wind power policy

This paper identifies and explains how political and institutional factors have determined the relative successes and failures of China’s wind power policy over the period 2005–2011. It finds that China has made significant progress in pursuing its wind power policy in terms of cumulative installed capacity, wind turbine manufacturing industry development and wind turbine cost, and argues that these achievements can be attributed to the political motives and institutional arrangements of the Chinese government as well as to institutional changes. On the other hand, the paper finds that there are two prominent policy failures, namely the low proportion of grid-connected capacity and the rising trend of wind turbine incidents. These have undermined the efficiency and effectiveness of China’s wind power program. The paper holds that the institutional sources for the first policy failure lies in the preference for setting wind power development targets in terms of installed capacity rather than generation and in coordination problems while the second policy failure lies in the lack of state technical codes for wind power integration and the unfair competition from the large state-owned power companies. The paper contributes to the academic literature on the political and institutional roles in China’s wind power policy.     

China’s new growth pattern and its effect on energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions

China’s economic transformation and new growth pattern have significant implications for energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. Using an extended version of a large computable general equilibrium model of China, we explore alternative futures for the Chinese economy and its energy needs over the period from 2015 to 2030. The simulation results show that encouraging household consumption and accelerating economic transition from investment-led to service-led growth will boost China’s economic growth. Capping coal consumption will improve China’s energy consumption structure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. The simulation exercises imply that, with a well-designed policy, the Chinese government can meet the challenges of strong economic growth, lower carbon emissions, environmental benefits, and energy security. Moreover, the Chinese government’s goal of peaking carbon emissions at 2030 is achievable.     

Volatility spillovers in China’s crude oil,corn and fuel ethanol markets

Price volatility spillovers among China’s crude oil, corn and fuel ethanol markets are analyzed based on weekly price data from September 5, 2003 to August 31, 2012, employing the univariate EGARCH model and the BEKK-MVGARCH model, respectively. The empirical results indicate a higher interaction among crude oil, corn and fuel ethanol markets after September, 2008. In the overall sample period, the results simultaneously provide strong evidence that there exist unidirectional spillover effects from the crude oil market to the corn and fuel ethanol markets, and double-directional spillovers between the corn market and the fuel ethanol market. However, the spillover effects from the corn and fuel ethanol markets to the crude oil market are not significant.     

ARIMA forecasting of China’s coal consumption,price and investment by 2030

Forecasting of energy consumption, price, and investment in coal industry is one of the most important proactive approaches and policy instruments used by decision-makers in China. Due to the richer information on time-related changes than the other methods, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) is applied to estimate the further coal price, consumption, and investment of China from 2016 to 2030. The best-fitted models for coal price, consumption, and investment at each predicted step are selected. The empirical results show that the annual average rate of coal consumption and investment will decrease between 2016 and 2030 except for coal price, which exhibits fluctuant behavior in the forecast period. The annual droop rate of coal consumption from 2016 to 2030 will be rather big, nearly the same with the annual growth rate from 2000 to 2015. The coal investment has the similar result with coal consumption.     

Devaney’s and Li-Yorke’s Chaos in Uniform Spaces

A definition of chaos in the sense of Li-Yorke is given for an action of a group on a uniform space, and it is shown that if a continuous action of an Abelian group G on a second countable Baire Hausdorff uniform space X without isolated points is chaotic in the sense of Devaney, then it is also chaotic in the sense of Li-Yorke.     

Asymmetric effects of oil prices and exchange rates on China’s industrial prices

This paper explores the impacts of positive and negative changes in crude oil price and exchange rate variables on raw material procurement prices and product ex-factory prices of China’s industrial enterprises. We run the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model for the full sample from January 2000 to June 2019, and find the existence of the cointegrating relationships and the asymmetries of the long-run effects from positive and negative changes in oil price and exchange rate variables. Then, we run the OLS and quantile regressions for the two subsamples. Through the analysis of the estimates in different quantities in the latter model, we obtain rich and novel findings. The main findings include the inconsistency between the practice of oil price and exchange rate transmissions in China and the usual theoretical explanations, and the active roles of China’s oil product mechanism and exchange rate policy reforms in mitigating transmission distortions. In addition, we also find other asymmetries such as the asymmetric effects in different locations of dependent variable’s conditional distribution, and the different effects on raw material prices and product ex-factory prices from the same independent variables.     

China’s farewell to coal: A forecast of coal consumption through 2020

In recent decades, China has encountered serious environmental problem, especially severe air pollution that has affected eastern and northern China frequently. Because most air pollutants in China are closely related to coal combustion, the restriction of coal consumption is critical to the improvement of the environment in China. In this study, a panel of 29 Chinese provinces from 1995 to 2012 is utilized to predict China’s coal consumption through 2020. After controlling for the spatial correlation of coal consumption among neighboring provinces, an inverted U-shaped Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) between coal consumption per capita and GDP per capita in China is detected. Furthermore, based on the estimation results and reasonable predictions of key control variables, China’s provincial and national coal consumption through 2020 is forecasted. Specifically, under the benchmark scenario, consumption is expected to continue growing at a decreasing rate until 2020, when China’s coal consumption would be approximately 4.43 billion tons. However, if China can maintain relatively high growth rate (an annual growth rate of 7.8 percent), the turning point in total coal consumption would occur in 2019, with projected consumption peaking at 4.16 billion tons.