Potential contributions of wind and solar power to China's carbon neutrality

China's goal of being carbon-neutral by 2060 requires a green electric power system dominated by renewable energy. However, the potential of wind and solar alone to power China remains unclear, hindering the holistic layout of the energy development plan. Here, after taking temporal matching of supply and demand (60 min), land use, and government policy into account and assuming lossless transmission, we demonstrate that deploying wind and solar capacity of 2495 and 2674 GW, respectively, within flexible and optimized grids can meet ~67% of electricity demands by all society sectors for 2050 (~6.3% curtailment rate), even without other costly power sources or storage. Spatially explicit configurations of the grids are provided simultaneously to support this achievement. The resulting green electricity supply of 10.4 PWh per year help secure China's carbon-neutral goal and reduces 2.08 Mt SO2 and 1.97 Mt NOx emissions annually. Our findings recommend policymakers accelerate exploiting complementary wind and solar power as the dominant source of energy.

Automated summary

China's goal of being carbon-neutral by 2060 can be achieved by deploying wind and solar capacity of approximately 2495 GW and 2674 GW respectively within flexible and optimized grids. This would meet about 67% of electricity demands for all sectors by 2050, reduce significant amounts of SO2 and NOx emissions, and secure a green energy supply for the country.