“十四五”时期是我国推动能源转型和绿色发展的重要窗口期，能源转型进程将在这五年期间加快步伐，但同时也依旧面临地方发展不均衡、节能减排进程放缓、行动计划落实程度不足、碳市场如何稳步推进等问题。 围绕这些问题，21世纪经济报道专访了中国能源研究会常务副理事长、国家发展改革委能源研究所原所长周大地。他认为，目前在一些能源转型的关键问题上，还没能形成统一观点，但推动能源结构向以非化石能源为主的结构进行转变，时间紧迫，需要尽快消除其中的体制性障碍或者市场竞争性障碍。 另一方面，应该加快发展能源需求量较大地区的分布式可再生能源，其社会成本较大，需要重新组织队伍、构建商业模式，妥善解决相应的成本负担和利益分享问题。 
碳市场目的是促进限排减排 
《21世纪》：制定碳达峰碳中和行动计划时，在顶层设计上还有哪些重点问题需要加快解决？ 
周大地：我觉得首先是几次中央的关键会议上，包括中央财经委会议、碳达峰碳中和工作领导小组第一次全体会议等，不但系统性地明确了“双碳”目标概念，还为实现碳达峰碳中和确定了大方向，而且对具体的行动方案计划进行了组织落实。 接下来就需要对各行各业、各个领域制定具体的指导计划。有关部门正在制定详细的相关工作指导意见。 具体到碳市场建设，实际上它并不是“双碳”目标以后才提出的。从2013年开始，在全国七省市的碳交易试点，我们就已经取得了很多经验，也对如何建立完备的碳市场体系有了比较清晰的认识。 建立碳交易市场，目的是引导重点排放企业限排减排。而发放排放配额并逐渐收紧，则是碳交易市场建设的起点。碳市场的建设重点不是以市场交易为主，而是以排放配额和相应的核查监督体系建设为主。也就是说，交易不是目的，促进限排减排才是目的。 现阶段我们从占全国排放超过40%的电力体系出发，下一步还会继续向其他的八大高耗能行业进行推广，使具体的低碳减排行动落实到这些重点排放企业里面去。 碳达峰碳中和行动，会涉及各行各业。在实现碳达峰的过程中，要将行动计划、具体措施和时间表，切实地落实到每个省，每个市，甚至每个县。 我个人认为，在碳达峰阶段需要抓以下几条： 

第一，在达峰过程中，要防止高碳的产业的盲目扩张，要防止出现“攀高峰”现象。 
第二，碳达峰过程中要加强节能减排。严格来讲，前一段时间多数地方在提高能效上还是有所放松。我们的目标是要在使用更少的能源与碳排放的情况下，达到同样的经济增长目标。但是，目前能源供应较为充足，有一些地方还怕企业少用能源，少用电。所以，节能减排不管在碳达峰还是碳中和阶段都是重要的工作内容，会起到相当大的作用，这件事要抓紧。 
第三，应该推动非化石能源加快发展。因为最后解决问题还是要从能源结构上转换成为非化石能源，时间很紧迫，所以要加快发展非化石能源。这项工作不能“一窝蜂”，但确实要快速解决相应的体制性障碍或者市场障碍。 
第四，对于已经技术成熟可以大规模推广的低碳产品，特别是汽车电动化和超低能耗建筑等，要加快其市场发展。 
《21世纪》：到目前为止，全国碳市场在启动交易之后的表现如何？ 
周大地：刚开市第一天的交易状况不错，我们不指望碳市场过于热闹。有一点需要大家明白的是，不能主要靠交易解决排放问题，交易只是对于配额分配不完全均衡的一种补充。而真正能够解决问题的做法还是提高效率、技术水平，从技术改造来减少排放，这应是努力的方向。 
随着低碳转型的进展，以后配额量会逐年减少，排放总量终归要降为零。 
所以我们要不断推进结构性调整，更多地使用新能源。目前配额比较宽松的条件下，不应该有非常大量的交易。如果碳价低，而且交易量比较大，说明配额偏松，一些企业明显有富余。这会使不少企业想通过交易解决排放限额，放松减排限排约束，有违碳市场的初衷。碳交易机制主要还是要鼓励大家力争自主完成限排减排任务。 
能源转型技术要先行 
《21世纪》：为顺利达成2030年碳达峰的阶段性目标，从全局视角来讲，接下来应该做哪些政策和体系上的重点安排？ 
周大地：因为目前一些关键问题上观点并不完全都统一，比如说电力需求快速增长，可再生能源发展加快后，是否需要煤电来做支撑？ 
这看起来是一个悖论，因为我们早晚要过渡到基本上没有煤电的状态，所以结构性上还是会有重大变化。其中有些问题需要通过新的技术创新解决，包括电力系统要充分利用数字技术，也包括用户端用电模式的转变，这样才能将以可再生能源为主的电力系统建设起来，在技术创新上首先要加快。 
再就是很多行业，特别是工业领域，要一下过渡到低碳技术，现在看来还不太成熟。这还需要在今后一段时间内进行更多研发、创新和示范。但也有一些行业，比如电动汽车，是较为明确的，应该加快发展。因为不管从传统的污染排放治理，还是从提高能源效率看，电动车都有优势。 
当技术比较成熟，可以进行市场竞争时，就应加快推广。同时，相关部门还要为基础设施、例如充电桩建设等方面做更多细化工作。 
要想真正实现低碳化，能源体系要从现在84%化石能源转变为90%以上可再生能源，时间紧迫，要加快进程。那么就要尽快加快新能源发展，主要是风电、太阳能，以及水电、核能。这些都要求电力系统加快改革和技术改造。 
一次能源要从化石能源转换成零碳能源，主要通过非化石能源的一次电力。工业用能低碳化未来则主要通过电气化实现。如果电力系统依旧是煤电占据主流，那工业的电气化也实现不了减碳目的，反而有可能增加碳排放。工业领域低碳技术路线正在逐渐清晰，但是具体到每个行业、部门、技术该如何落实，特别是分步实施的先后顺序，还需要分别制定更详细的工作计划。当前要在节能降耗、低碳零碳技术创新、技术示范等方面多下功夫。 
《21世纪》：在实现碳达峰碳中和目标的过程中，部分地方财政、经济对能源或钢铁等重点行业依赖性较高，该如何帮助这些地方做好转型？如何更好地发挥地方或城市的力量？ 
周大地：限制“两高”或节能减排，并不是要把钢铁等高排放产业都关掉。以钢铁行业为例，钢铁生产的现有市场要重新考虑定位。今年5月开始一般的钢材出口已经不退税了，这是应该的，甚至以后我们还可以考虑加点税。 不但高耗能产品低价出口的状况要扭转，高耗能产业的增量也会有变化。相关产业在产量上可以说已经达峰了，所以未来我们主要面临的是存量问题。 
依靠这些存量来支撑发展的省市，未来确实会面临产业缩小甚至消失的风险。但我们在碳中和目标到来之前，有二三十年的时间来进行产业转换。所以只要方向正确，不去继续扩大风险，现有的产能资本应该可以得到合理回报和及时转移。在现阶段传统惯性发展模式下面临一些困难也很正常，但产业整体上的转换是必然的。这不是低碳转型才触及的问题，也不是只有中国才会面临的问题。 市场不会一成不变，钢铁行业也不可能总是维持十几亿吨的高产量，总有人要退出去。煤炭方面也已经有其他国家和地区提出清零了，依赖煤炭生产的地方要进行产业调整、转型。这是早晚要发生的事，所以要积极主动来应对产业更新。地方需要不断学习，准备技术储备、重新投资、创新，要寻找新的经济增长点。地方需要认清这一点，不能只想着维持甚至扩大现有高碳生产。 
       我们应该尽可能有效利用现有产能，要防止盲目投资、新增低效无效甚至是负效产能。新投资要在新的产业、生产动力和发展动力上下功夫。 《21世纪》：前不久有关部门也通知开展“整县屋顶分布式光伏开发试点”，如何看待分布式可再生能源项目的发展？ 周大地：要加快可再生能源发展，这是一定的。目前真正可能缺电的是中东部，所以中东部可再生能源资源的充分开发意义重大。而在中东部，可利用的空余土地面积并不多，所以要充分利用农村或县级的房屋房顶和可利用的空间资源，整县推进分布式光伏。这是件好事，对加快开发中东部的风光资源来说很有意义，也比集中式可再生能源发电场资源更丰富。 不过，在执行过程中，还有很多可不断改善的地方。大企业要积极投入，也要把农民动员起来，并且相关项目要和农业农村发展更好地结合。但总的来看，鼓励能源企业去推进中东部县级的全覆盖网点，方向完全正确。 
      相比建造大型电厂，分布式能源很分散，社会成本很大，需要去动员千家万户、征得使用屋顶的同意，设置可以共用的设施布点，还要面对利益合理分配、调动各方积极性、更有效持续运行等挑战。相信大型的能源企业一定可以通过相关项目，更多地扩展业务空间，完善商业模式，进一步适应大规模多元化发展新能源的发展需求。
来源：国际能源研究中心

The 14th Five-Year Plan period is an important window for China to promote energy transformation and green development. The process of energy transformation will accelerate in this five-year period, but at the same time, there are still problems such as unbalanced local development, slowing down the process of energy conservation and emission reduction, insufficient implementation of the action plan, and how to steadily promote the carbon market. On these issues, the 21st Century Business Herald interviewed Zhou Dadi, executive vice president of the China Energy Research Society and former director of the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission. He believes that at present, there is no unified view on some key issues of energy transition, but time is pressing to promote the transformation of energy structure to non-fossil energy structure, and it is necessary to remove institutional barriers or market competition barriers as soon as possible.On the other hand, we should accelerate the development of distributed renewable energy in areas with large energy demand, which has a high social cost. It is necessary to reorganize the team, build a business model, and properly solve the corresponding cost burden and benefit sharing problems.

Carbon markets are designed to help limit emissions

21ST century: What are the top level design priorities that need to be addressed quickly when developing a carbon neutral action plan?

Zhou dadi: I think first of all, is the key to several times the central meeting, including the central financial committee meeting, carbon carbon neutral work leading group of peak first plenary meeting, etc., not only systematically clarified the concept of "double carbon" target, also for the realization of the carbon carbon neutral determines the direction of peak, and the specific organization to carry out the action plan. The next step is to develop specific guidance plans for each industry and field.Relevant departments are working out detailed guidance on relevant work. As for the construction of a carbon market, in fact, it is not only proposed after the "dual carbon" target.Since 2013, we have gained a lot of experience in carbon trading pilot projects in seven provinces and cities across the country, and have a clear understanding of how to establish a complete carbon market system. The purpose of establishing a carbon trading market is to guide key emitting enterprises to limit emissions and reduce emissions.Issuing emission quotas and gradually tightening them is the starting point for the construction of a carbon trading market. The construction of carbon market focuses not on market trading, but on emission quota and corresponding verification and supervision system construction. In other words, trading is not the goal, but promoting emission reduction. At present, we will start from the power system, which accounts for more than 40% of China's emissions. In the next step, we will continue to promote to other eight energy-intensive industries, so that specific low-carbon emission reduction actions will be implemented in these key emitters.Peak Carbon neutrality will involve all industries.In the process of reaching carbon peak, action plans, specific measures and timetables should be implemented in every province, city and even county.Personally, I think the following points should be taken into consideration in the carbon peak stage:

First, in the process of reaching the peak, to prevent the blind expansion of high-carbon industries, to prevent the phenomenon of "peak climbing".

Second, energy conservation and emission reduction should be strengthened in the process of carbon peak.Strictly speaking, most places have been easing up on energy efficiency for some time now. The goal is to achieve the same economic growth goals while using less energy and carbon emissions.However, the current energy supply is relatively sufficient, and some localities are afraid of enterprises using less energy and less electricity. Therefore, energy conservation and emission reduction is an important part of the work, no matter in the carbon peak or carbon neutral stage, will play a considerable role, this matter should be accelerated.

Third, we should accelerate the development of non-fossil energy.Because the final solution to the problem is to switch from the energy mix to non-fossil energy, time is very tight, so we should speed up the development of non-fossil energy. This work cannot be done in a rush, but it is necessary to quickly solve the corresponding institutional or market obstacles.

Fourth, we should accelerate the market development of low-carbon products that have mature technologies and can be widely promoted, especially the electrification of automobiles and ultra-low energy buildings.

21ST century: How has the national carbon market fared so far since its launch?

Zhou Dadi: The first day of trading was good. We don't expect the carbon market to be too busy.One thing that needs to be understood is that emissions cannot be solved primarily by trading. Trading is only a supplement to the imperfectly balanced allocation of quotas. The real way to solve the problem is to improve efficiency and technological level, and reduce emissions through technological transformation, which should be the direction of efforts.

With the progress of low-carbon transition, the quota will be reduced year by year in the future, and the total emissions will eventually be reduced to zero.

That is why we must continue to push forward structural adjustment and make greater use of new energy.There should not be a lot of trading under the current relaxed quota conditions. If the carbon price is low, and the trading volume is relatively large, indicating that the quota is loose, some enterprises obviously have surplus.This will make many enterprises want to solve the emission quota through trading and relax the restriction of emission reduction, which is contrary to the original intention of the carbon market. The main purpose of the carbon trading system is to encourage people to limit and reduce emissions on their own.

Energy transition technology should take the lead

21st Century: In order to achieve the phased goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030, from an overall perspective, what should be the next policy and system priorities?

Zhou Dadi: At present, there is not a complete consensus on some key issues, such as the rapid growth of electricity demand and the rapid development of renewable energy, whether coal power is needed to support?

This seems like a paradox, because sooner or later we're going to have to move to basically no coal power, so there's going to be a big structural change. Some of these problems need to be solved through new technological innovation, including the full use of digital technology in the power system, but also the transformation of the user side of the electricity pattern, so as to build the power system based on renewable energy, technological innovation must be accelerated first.

In addition, many industries, especially industry, need to make the transition to low-carbon technologies, which are not yet mature.This will require more RESEARCH and development, innovation and demonstration over the coming period.But there are some sectors, such as electric cars, that are more clear-cut and should be accelerated. Because no matter from the traditional pollution emission control, or from improving energy efficiency, electric vehicles have advantages.

When the technology is more mature, can carry on the market competition, should accelerate the promotion.At the same time, more detailed work should be done on infrastructure, such as charging piles.

In order to truly achieve low carbon, the energy system should be transformed from the current 84% fossil energy to over 90% renewable energy. Time is pressing and the process should be accelerated. So we need to accelerate the development of new energy as soon as possible, mainly wind power, solar energy, hydropower, nuclear energy.All these require the power system to accelerate the reform and technical transformation.

Primary energy should be converted from fossil energy to zero-carbon energy mainly through primary electricity from non-fossil energy. The low carbonization of industrial energy will be realized mainly through electrification.If the power system continues to be dominated by coal, electrification of industry will not reduce carbon emissions and may increase them. The path of low-carbon technology in the industrial sector is gradually becoming clear, but more detailed work plans need to be made on how each industry, sector and technology should be implemented, especially the sequence of step-by-step implementation.At present, more efforts should be made in energy conservation, energy consumption reduction, low-carbon and zero-carbon technological innovation, and technological demonstration.

21st Century: In the process of achieving carbon neutrality, some local governments are highly dependent on key industries such as energy and steel. How can they be helped to make the transition? How to better harness the power of local or city?

Zhou Dadi: Limiting the consumption of energy, energy, and emissions does not mean shutting down all industries with high emissions, such as steel. Take the steel industry as an example, the existing market of steel production should be reconsidered.Since may this year, general steel exports have not tax rebates, this is should, and even later we can consider adding tax. Not only will the situation of low-price export of energy-intensive products be reversed, but also the increment of energy-intensive industries will be changed.Related industries in terms of output can be said to have reached a peak, so we will mainly face the stock problem in the future.

Provinces and cities that rely on these stocks to support development will indeed face the risk of shrinking or even disappearing industries in the future. But we have 20 or 30 years to transform the industry before carbon neutrality.Therefore, as long as the direction is correct and risks are not further expanded, the existing capacity capital should be reasonably returned and transferred in a timely manner. It is normal to face some difficulties under the traditional inertia development mode at the present stage, but the transformation of the industry as a whole is inevitable. This is not a problem only faced by the low-carbon transition, nor is it a problem only faced by China.The market will not stay the same, and the steel industry will not always be able to produce billions of tons of steel. Someone will have to quit. In terms of coal production, other countries and regions have proposed the elimination of coal production, and local industries that depend on coal production should carry out industrial adjustment and transformation.This is going to happen sooner or later, so be proactive in responding to industrial renewal. Local governments need to keep learning, prepare technological reserves, reinvest, innovate and find new economic growth points.Localities need to recognise this and not just focus on maintaining or even expanding existing high-carbon production.

We should make the best use of existing production capacity and prevent blind investment or the addition of inefficient, ineffective or even negative production capacity. New investment should focus on new industries, driving forces for production and development."21st Century" : not long ago, relevant departments also announced the launch of "the whole county rooftop distributed photovoltaic development pilot", how to view the development of distributed renewable energy projects? Zhou Dadi: It is certain that we will accelerate the development of renewable energy.It is the central and eastern regions that are really likely to be short of electricity, so the full development of renewable energy resources in the central and eastern regions is of great significance. In the middle and east, the available free land area is not much, so it is necessary to make full use of rural or county-level house roofs and available space resources to promote distributed photovoltaic throughout the county.That's a good thing, and it makes sense to accelerate the development of the landscape in the east and central, which is richer than centralized renewable energy farms. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement in implementation.Large enterprises should be actively involved, farmers should also be mobilized, and related projects should be better integrated with agricultural and rural development. But in general, encouraging energy companies to push forward with full coverage of county-level networks in central and eastern China is in the right direction.

Compared with the construction of large power plants, distributed energy is highly dispersed and has high social costs. It requires mobilizing thousands of households, obtaining permission to use the roof, setting up facilities that can be shared, and facing challenges such as rational distribution of benefits, mobilization of the enthusiasm of all parties, and more efficient and sustainable operation. It is believed that large-scale energy enterprises can expand their business space, improve their business models and further adapt to the development needs of large-scale and diversified development of new energy through relevant projects.

Source: International Energy Research Center