Energy saving and carbon reduction behavior evolution between stakeholders in a joint power-carbon market: a case of China

As a country with large carbon emissions, China has made promises on carbon peaking and carbon neutralization. Since a joint power-carbon market is designed to facilitate energy-consuming enterprises (ECE) to take actions on energy saving and carbon reduction (ESCR), the investigation of the behavior evolution of different enterprise groups is of significance in predicting and evaluating the effects of carbon reduction based on the implementation of various policy packs. Consequently, within the current market and policy framework, this study establishes an evolutionary game model for ECE based on authentic Chinese data. Accordingly, the stability as well as the externality of strategy evolution are analyzed. In the case of China, results are obtained as follows: (1) The initial proportion of ECE enrolled in the ESCR strategy imposes profound impacts on the dynamic evolutionary trajectory of the system. (2) Initial strategy selections on the ESCR of high energy-consuming enterprises (HECE) or common energy-consuming enterprises (CECE) would be distracted when the key parameters, such as the power price incentive factor or carbon price are greater than the threshold value. (3) With the swift growth of the capacity and penetration of renewable energy in the grid, economically friendly policies are recommended to be given prior consideration to aggressive environmental drafts after carbon peaking.