Climate change, electricity reliability, and energy structure: County-level evidence from China

IF 5.2 1区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

中国经济评论 Pub Date : 2025-07-12 DOI:10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102500

Mingwei Yu , Fang Xia , Li Su , Feng Song

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Anecdotal evidence suggests that climate change and the widespread adoption of renewable energy may negatively impact power reliability, potentially causing significant economic damage. However, rigorous quantitative studies exploring the relationship among climate change, energy structure, and power reliability remain scarce, primarily due to the lack of reliable measures for assessing power reliability. Using county-level data from China between 2013 and 2019, we propose a novel method to construct a proxy variable that measures electricity reliability at a broad geographic scale and high temporal frequency using satellite data. This innovative approach enables us to empirically investigate the effects of climate change on electricity reliability and the heterogeneous impacts based on local energy structure. Our findings provide strong evidence that hot weather, precipitations, and wind power generation compromise electricity reliability, consistent with theoretical predictions, whereas the impacts of solar energy are not robust due to low penetration rate. Furthermore, our heterogeneity analysis reveals that thermal power and solar energy could exacerbate the adverse effects of climate change, underscoring the need for enhanced services to ensure electricity security.

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气候变化、电力可靠性和能源结构：来自中国的县级证据

坊间证据表明，气候变化和可再生能源的广泛采用可能对电力可靠性产生负面影响，可能造成重大的经济损失。然而，对气候变化、能源结构和电力可靠性之间关系的严谨定量研究仍然很少，这主要是由于缺乏可靠的评估电力可靠性的措施。利用2013年至2019年中国县级数据，我们提出了一种新的方法来构建一个代理变量，该变量使用卫星数据来衡量大地理尺度和高时间频率下的电力可靠性。这种创新的方法使我们能够实证研究气候变化对电力可靠性的影响以及基于局部能源结构的异质影响。我们的研究结果提供了强有力的证据，表明炎热的天气、降水和风力发电会损害电力可靠性，这与理论预测一致，而太阳能的影响由于渗透率低而不那么强大。此外，我们的异质性分析表明，火电和太阳能可能加剧气候变化的不利影响，强调需要加强服务以确保电力安全。

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来源期刊

中国经济评论 ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

10.60

自引率

4.40%

发文量

380

期刊介绍： The China Economic Review publishes original works of scholarship which add to the knowledge of the economy of China and to economies as a discipline. We seek, in particular, papers dealing with policy, performance and institutional change. Empirical papers normally use a formal model, a data set, and standard statistical techniques. Submissions are subjected to double-blind peer review.