The carbon reduction effects of stepped carbon emissions trading and carbon capture and storage on hybrid wind-PV-thermal- storage generation operating systems

To accelerate the low-carbon transformation of the power industry, a range of carbon emission reduction policies and technologies have emerged. However, the current China’s carbon emissions trading (CET) policy is inadequate in encouraging power generation enterprises to take proactive measures towards emission reduction due to challenges like fixed and low carbon prices. The high proportion of renewable energy in electricity consumption also faces significant challenges due to the unpredictable nature of wind and PV energy. Therefore, this paper applies stepped CET mechanism, energy storage system (ES) system and carbon capture and storage (CCS) mechanism together to hybrid renewable energy system, aiming to study their synergistic carbon emission reduction effect. Firstly, the paper constructs the stepped CET model considering incentives and penalties. Secondly, the stepped CET model, ES system and CCS are jointly introduced into the hybrid renewable energy system. Finally, a scenario analysis is conducted to investigate the synergistic effect of various carbon emissions reduction policies and technologies in the operation of power generation systems. The results show that: i) compared with traditional CET, the stepped CET increases renewable energy consumption by 0.12% and reduces carbon emissions by 0.6%; ii) the introduction of stepped CET and ES equipment together consumes an additional 36.1% of renewable energy and reduces carbon emissions by 32.4%; iii) based on stepped CET model and ES equipment, the introduction of CCS system reduces carbon emissions by 29.4%.