International cooperation and exchange is an important component of China’s energy system development policy, and also an important direction for the think tank research work of Tsinghua University. To respond to the national call and the school’s guidance on think tank work, and to promote the internationalization of energy-power policy think tank research, the Energy Internet Research Institute of Tsinghua University (hereinafter referred to as the institute) energy governance team recently went to Phoenix, USA, and organized a sub-forum titled “Deep Decarbonization of China’s Power System: Pathways and Challenges” at the INFORMS 2023 Annual Meeting on October 17, 2023, and invited teams from Chinese and American universities who have in-depth research on China’s issues to share and discuss their research results.
The Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) is the most important international operations research and management science society in the world. The INFORMS annual meeting attracted more than 7,000 people, of which the energy natural resources and power division (ENRE cluster) had more than 400 people, gathering a large number of important experts and scholars in the fields of energy and power system marketization, decarbonization pathway analysis, etc.
At the sub-forum of “Deep Decarbonization of China’s Power System: Pathways and Challenges” on October 17, experts and scholars who are concerned about and study China’s new power system transformation path and challenges gathered to listen to the report. Michael Davidson from the University of California, Davis, Dr. Xu Qingyu from the institute, and Zhu Ziheng/Zhang Da from the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy of Tsinghua University (Tsinghua 3E) gave reports on the historical experience, path design, policy mechanism design of China’s new power system construction.
Professor Davidson presented his team’s work on building an open source database of China’s power system, which they used to reproduce the power shortage in Northeast China in 2021 and analyze the underlying causes of the shortage. Professor Davidson also shared some of his policy recommendations on China’s decarbonization path, inter-provincial medium and long-term and spot trading.
Professor Davidson is giving a report
Dr. Xu Qingyu presented the research on China’s coal resource transformation path by the energy governance team using the open source power system medium and long-term planning model GenX. The research focused on the transformation strategy, policy design and mechanism design of coal-fired capacity in China’s power system during the two important processes of system reform and decarbonization.
Dr. Xu Qingyu is giving a report
Professor Zhu Ziheng and Professor Zhang Da presented the high spatial and temporal resolution wind and solar resource endowment database and the clean energy deployment and power optimization model (RESPO) built by their team, and based on the model results, they shared China’s new power system wind and solar resource land scale, energy storage and transmission scale and system cost.
Dr. Zhu Ziheng is giving an online report
The forum was attended by more than 50 people, and the English website of the Energy Internet Research Institute of Tsinghua University was released at the forum. The English website will update and publish important research results of Tsinghua University in the field of energy governance, provide important platform support for strengthening academic exchanges and open cooperation in the field of energy governance, and promote the internationalization of energy think tanks.
The English website of the institute
This “Deep Decarbonization of China’s Power System: Pathways and Challenges” is the only sub-forum focusing on China’s power system transformation process at the INFORMS annual meeting in recent years. Its design intention is to promote the international exchange of research work based on operations research and focusing on China’s energy-power transition. Based on this, the energy governance team of the institute will further promote energy-related international cooperation and think tank internationalization work through regular international academic exchange activities.
