A provincial analysis on wind and solar investment needs towards China's carbon neutrality

Abstract

Accelerating the deployment of renewable energy (RE) is one of the most important strategies to achieve the 2060 carbon neutrality goal in China. In this context, it is crucial to understand the RE investment needs at the provincial level to better allocate resources and develop policies to facilitate RE development at the local level. In this paper, we estimate the wind and solar investment needs of Chinese provinces between 2020 and 2060 under four alternative pathways towards China's 2060 carbon neutrality, using a global integrated assessment model with provincial details of China combined with the most updated cost data for each province, and explicitly considering national and local investment market conditions. Results show that the average annual wind and solar investment needs are $317 billion per year between 2020 and 2060, or 2.3 % of China's 2020 GDP. We find large spatial and temporal variations in the needed RE investment and identify that technologies, resource endowment, and financial conditions are the three primary contributors to the regional disparity in investment needs. This study delves into the local factors constraining RE deployment in China, providing insights applicable not only to the country but also holding implications for studying global RE investment dynamics in alignment with the collective pursuit of heightened clean energy transition goals.