In Part 1 we explored one of the gamechangers that would allow China to transition from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and renewable supply—oil-free mobility. In Part 2, we explore two other gamechangers that would allow China to reinvent fire—adopting integrative design for efficiency in buildings and industry, and redefining the future of the electric grid.
Gamechanger 2: Integrative Design
The factories and buildings that use roughly 90 percent of China’s energy can save more energy than previously thought, yet at lower cost, by a new technique we call “integrative design.” It rigorously applies orthodox engineering principles, but achieves radically more energy- and resource-efficient results by asking different questions in a different sequence to yield a different design logic. Optimizing whole systems for multiple benefits, not individual components for single benefits, can often yield expanding rather than the normal diminishing returns to investments in energy efficiency, making very large (even order-of-magnitude) energy savings cost less than small or no savings.
Gamechanger 3: Redefining the Future Electric Grid
Needing less electricity would ease and speed China’s—and thus, the world’s—shift to renewable electricity. Once radical energy efficiency has minimized the electricity needed by buildings, industry, and a newly-electrified vehicle fleet, a right-sized grid can be architected to meet customers’ exact demands. Options for that right-sized grid could be fully centralized, or hybridized with local, distributed energy resources.
An 80-percent-renewable grid
While China’s grid has its own unique needs and attributes, the flexibility and security of a more distributed grid and the possibility of a highly renewable future are both worth considering—especially since China is the world leader in at least six renewable technologies. Interactive two-way smart grids that can use demand-side resources to balance grid generation, such as Tianjin is currently piloting, are another important building block of China’s secure electricity future. And more distribution-level intelligence including autonomous controls can integrate microgrids and balance the complex network of loads and generators.
Achieving an 80-percent mix of renewables may be decades away, but in 2012 more added Chinese electricity came from non-hydro renewables than from all new fossil-fueled and nuclear sources combined, so the shift is gaining momentum. Indeed, in 2013, China added more photovoltaic capacity than the United States has added ever since it developed that technology 60 years ago.
cleantechnica