Peipei Chen

Advancing the modelling of global power sector carbon neutrality and economic impacts

School research theme: Sustainability in the built environment
Research supervisors: Dr. Jing Meng and Professor D'Maris Coffman
Start date: September 2020

Carbon neutrality is a major aim in the battle against climate change and the promotion of the energy transition, with an increasing number of countries pledging to attain carbon neutrality by 2050. The power sector plays an important role in the overall energy system, not only in terms of socio-economic impact, but also in terms of carbon emissions. Global power sector emissions reach 13.5 Gt in 2020, accounting for about 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions, which is a driving force behind the economy's transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient, and long-term future. Therefore, the path of emission reduction in the power sector should be prioritised to reduce total world carbon emissions and attain carbon neutrality by mid-century.

My research plans to optimise the existing Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) for bottom-up method in conjunction with a global point source database for the power sector; and to analyse the socio-economic impact of emission reductions in the power sector based on different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) in conjunction with a macroeconomic module. This research programme will analyse the process flow of the electricity generation from a point source database and innovate in the modelling approach; it also focuses on carbon neutral pathways in emerging economies to inform decision making in developing countries.

Publications

• Chen, P., Wu, Y., Zhong, H., Long, Y., Meng, J. (2021). Exploring household emission patterns and driving factors in Japan using machine learning methods. Applied Energy (accepted)
• Long, Y., Jiang, Y., Chen, P., Kenichiro, K., Meng, J., Guan, D. (2021). Monthly direct and indirect greenhouse gases emissions from household consumption in the major Japanese cities. Scientific Data (accepted)
• Working paper: The heterogenous role of energy policies in Asia-Pacific emerging economies’ energy transition
• Working paper: Full-scale and Near Real Time Multi-Regional Input-output Table for The Global Emerging Economies (EMERGING)
• Working paper: Effect measurement of PV adoption on household electricity consumption: Evidence from Japan based on a PSM-DID approach
• Chen, P., Wu, Y., & Zou, L. (2019). Distributive PV trading market in China: A design of multi-agent-based model and its forecast analysis. Energy, 185, 423–436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2019.07.070
• Meng, J., Hu, X., Chen, P., Coffman, D. M., & Han, M. (2020). The unequal contribution to global energy consumption along the supply chain. Journal of Environmental Management, 268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110701
• Wu, Y., Chen, P., Pu, Y., Dong, W., & Zou, L. (2020). A data mining-based multi-layer decision support system towards sustainable urbanization transition. EnerarXiv. Retrieved from http://www.enerarxiv.org/page/thesis.html?id=1858
• Guan, D., Wang, D., Hallegatte, S., Davis, S. J., Huo, J., Li, S., … Gong, P. (2020). Global supply-chain effects of COVID-19 control measures. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(6), 577–587. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0896-8
• Liu, J., Chen P., Chen H., & Wang S. (2018). The Ranking Method of Interval Linguistic Preference Relations Based on Cross Efficiency DEA and Stochastic Simulation. Systems Engineering - Theory & Practice, 38(4): 950–959. http://www.sysengi.com/CN/10.12011/1000-6788(2018)04-0950-10