Prospective exploration of future renewable portfolio standard schemes in China via a multi-sector CGE model

The shortage of traditional energy sources and environmental pollution caused by the consumption of fossil fuels have become increasingly prominent, and many countries regard the development of renewable energy as important for ensuring energy conservation and emission reductions. In addition, renewable portfolio standard is important for China to achieve energy transition. The Chinese government is actively promoting the construction of a renewable portfolio standard system. Considering different renewable energy development targets for renewable portfolio standards, this paper establishes a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to research the impacts of achieving various policy targets. The main simulation results are as follows. Promoting renewable sources would have a slightly negative impact on macroeconomics. For each additional percentage point in the share of renewable energy generation in 2030, the loss of GDP would increase by approximately 9.11 billion RMB. A renewable energy policy could be also conducive to carbon emission reduction and energy structure adjustment. Certainly, the proportion of renewable energy in the total power generation should be approximately 34% to achieve the government target for non-fossil fuels to account for approximately 20% of the primary energy consumption by 2030.