A Study of Legal Adaptation in China's Wind Power Development
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Abstract
Legal adaptation is considered a crucial part and one of the most effective tools of the global energy transition. The energy transition process promotes the rise of the renewable energy industry and brings a tremendous challenge to the law. How could or should the law adapt to the challenge of this global trend? This article will start this study from the case of Chinese wind energy development.
China is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world for renewable energy. Although the large-scale development of wind energy started in 2000, China's wind power installed capacity reached 300 million kilowatts by 2021, and power generation accounted for about 7% of the total electricity consumption . This year's installed capacity of coal power is approximately 1 billion kilowatts, but its power generation accounted for 71.27% of the whole country . Two energy sources with three times the difference in installed capacity have ten times the difference in power generation. Why is China's electricity market so biased towards traditional energy? How did the large-scale wind curtailment in China occur? And what role should the law play in China's energy transition game to adapt and regulate the development of the electricity market and guide China's energy transition?
This paper will use game theory to analyze China's power pricing system and the operation of China's national electricity transmission grid, so as to explore how the law has and should adapt to China's renewable energy development under its unique power market system and power administrative management system, to minimize the rent-seeking behavior generated in power transmission and support the development of wind energy. This paper will propose solutions to the problem of wind curtailment in China's energy transition from a legal adaptation perspective and provide a reference for other countries.
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