Full Title: China’s Power Sector and Air Quality Reforms: Global Lessons on Getting Institutional Responsibilities Right
Author(s): Christopher James
Publisher(s): Regulatory Assistance Project
Publication Date: November 1, 2017
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Description (excerpt):
China’s 13th Five-Year Plan includes goals to establish electricity markets and deepen progress toward improving air quality. But achieving the plan’s energy and environmental targets could result in unintended consequences, including increased pollution, shifting pollution from one region to another, and falling short in the utilization of China’s renewable energy resources and new high-efficiency thermal plants.
Regulators in the European Union and the United States also faced competing policy and regulatory choices as they sought to establish or liberalize electricity markets while at the same time improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In those regions, successful policy implementation hinged on the answers to these questions:
- How should regulators address new thermal power plants?
- How should regulators address existing thermal power plants?
- As electricity markets are developed, what environmental standards should apply?