As the earth gets hotter, energy demand will increase significantly along with global temperatures. Now a team of researchers in China has determined in a recent study that by the end of this century, peak energy demand in China will increase by a minimum of 72 percent. For every degree Celsius that the global mean surface temperature (GMST) increases, average Chinese residential energy use is projected to raise 9 percent, while peak electricity use will increase 36 percent per degree Celsius.
It is projected that the mean surface temperature of the earth will be 2-5 C hotter by 2099. Calculating based off of current consumption patterns in China, this means that the most conservative estimates show average Chinese residential electricity demand would rise by 18 percent. At the high end, average Chinese residential electricity demand would rise by a whopping 55 percent. Meanwhile peak usage, on the low end, would increase by at least 72 percent.
These findings will have major implications for energy grid planning and other infrastructure in China, where energy use has already been booming thanks to a rapidly expanding middle class. As Chinese incomes increase, even without the added impact of climate change, the electricity consumption of the average Chinese household is expected to double by 2040. Libo Wu, one of the authors of this recent study and professor and director of the Center for Energy Economics and Strategies Studies at Fudan University in China, says that his team’s findings “contribute solid evidence supporting China’s low-carbon policy by showing how important increasing demand from the residential sector will be.”
As part of the study, researchers examined how Chinese energy users responded to daily fluctuations in temperature by analyzing data gathered from more than 800,000 residential customers in the Pudong district of Shanghai between 2014 and 2016.
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The California Duck Curve is causing concern among California’s utilities, who wonder whether they will be able to ramp generation up quickly enough to meet evening peak demand when all the new solar capacity California plans to add over the next few years comes on line. As the title of this post notes, however, the California Duck Curve isn’t unique to California. It’s present everywhere to a greater or lesser extent regardless of the shape of the daily load curve, and in many places it’s a more serious problem than it is in California.
