Is the power company ready for low-carbon transformation?
climate change.
On April 30th, the carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) released a report entitled "starting the transition: are Power companies ready for a low-carbon Future" (Flicking the Switch: Are Electric Utilities Prepared for a Low Carbon Future), which examines how Europe's major power companies are responding to low-carbon transition requirements and points out that the EU must promote renewable energy production to meet its climate targets.
In recent years, the European emissions trading system (EU ETS) carbon prices have continued to fall, and the price gap between natural gas and coal is increasing, so coal-fired power generation is replacing cleaner natural gas power generation.
The EU's greenhouse gas reduction target is to reduce emissions by 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050.
If Europe is to meet its climate targets, more than 45% of Europe's electricity production will need to come from renewable sources by 2030.
To achieve such a cost-effective goal, the region must increase the production of renewable energy, switch from coal to natural gas power generation, and set carbon prices significantly higher than those defined by EU ETS.
In addition, the market also needs to increase investment in technologies, such as energy reserves and (clean) power generation technologies, so that production can be adjusted quickly once the supply of renewable energy declines.
Climate change brings different costs and opportunities to European utilities.
The CDP report calculates the carbon costs of European power companies and takes an in-depth look at the material impact of key emissions-related indicators on their performance.
By using a series of carbon emission indicators to rank the power companies, the Super Alliance Table (SLT) is made.
The evaluation indicators mainly consider the following four aspects:
1 carbon risk.
According to the global assets of power companies to analyze their carbon emission risks, as well as the impact of different carbon price schemes on profitability, carbon intensity indicators are used to evaluate the scientific emission reduction targets set by each company.
2Renewable energy.
The power companies' renewable energy generation mix is assessed based on the changes in hydropower and other renewable energy generation in 2013 and the changes in installed capacity in 2010.
To assess how companies seize the opportunity of renewable energy in the market, CDP compared the growth rate of renewable energy production with that of the domestic market, and assessed their attractiveness to the market.
(3) Coal risk.
Based on the output of coal and lignite in power plants in 2013, the decline in installed capacity in 2010 and 2013, and the percentage of subcritical coal-fired power plants (such as coal-fired power generation with the lowest efficiency and the most carbon-intensive), the study found that coal and lignite power generation technologies have the highest carbon emission intensity.
As carbon prices rise, so does the risk of coal.
Given that regulations tend to purify coal and eventually eliminate coal power generation, this indicator helps to assess the coal risks faced by power companies.
4Water risk.
The deteriorating water security directly or indirectly restricts the development of water-consuming power companies through the supply chain.
Evaluate the water risk and the ability to deal with the risk according to the water strategy, supply chain management, risk and opportunity, water intensity, index and target of the power company.
In addition, the Super League table also includes CDP's annual climate performance ranking.
1749 companies are graded according to their preparations for climate change.
The high score shows that the company is running well and the management team is far-sighted.
The top companies are Spanish power giant Iberdrola, Britain's Centrica and Austria's Verbund, followed by Germany's RWE, Germany's EnBW and SSE.
Generally speaking, low-carbon transformation will have a substantial impact on the performance of power companies.
The future research field of CDP will also be extended to power companies in the United States, Latin America and China to develop and make use of digital grid technology to study the impact of electric vehicles and distributed power generation on the operation mode of traditional power companies.
And carry on the high-level modeling to the carbon price scheme.
If the price of carbon rises, the economic performance of natural gas will be better than coal.
If the price of carbon remains at a certain level, power companies that have both coal and natural gas for power generation will start switching back from coal to natural gas, reducing emissions intensity.
The rising rate of carbon costs of power companies will be slightly lower than that of carbon prices, and there is a non-linear correlation between them.
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