The Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022 is being billed as the first “green” Olympic games, with the first games running entirely on renewable energy. We show in a recent study for Carbon Brief that China’s leadership’s goal to highlight clean energy growth and make it part of the country’s international image, while essential in and of itself, is backed up by real-world achievements.
Zhangjiakou, a mountain city in China’s Hebei province which is hosting the games’ skiing activities, has a renewable energy capacity that exceeds that of most countries – and a groundbreaking “Zhangjiakou Green Electric Grid” that delivers power from the city to Beijing.
Furthermore, the pilot renewable power system is a scale model of a far larger plan which the Chinese government is implementing across the country, with the goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060.
‘Green’ power supply for the Olympics
According to the organizers, the venues will demand roughly ss400-gigawatt-hours (GWh) of power from the beginning of the preparations in mid-2019 until the end of the games. This is the equivalent of around 180,000 Chinese homes’ annual electricity consumption.
Wind and solar power installed capacity in China exceeded 600 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2021, with both technologies surpassing 300GW last year. In 2021, China generated 2,480 terawatt-hours (TWh) of renewable electricity, including hydropower. As a result, China’s abundant renewable energy capacity can easily fulfill the Olympics’ electricity needs.
The government, however, has utilized the games to develop a dedicated renewable power system, rather than simply buying renewable power on paper via the trading mechanism.
The government is employing the cross-regional “green power trading” mechanism, that allows large customers to purchase renewable electricity produced anywhere in the country, to meet the declared 100% renewable electricity objective. The games have been prioritized in the trading platform, having venues able to purchase renewable energy at a reduced cost.
The renewable energy flexible direct current grid is being introduced.
The renewable electricity trade for the games is managed by State Grid Beijing Company. The majority of the electricity originates from 11 solar and wind power producing firms in Zhangjiakou. By the end of 2021, the organizers claim to have purchased 171GWh of “green” electricity – wind and solar – and 237GWh by the close of 2021. According to these figures, the total amount of electricity used at the Olympic venues will be roughly 160GWh.
The building of the Zhangbei renewable energy flexible direct current (DC) grid has been hastened as a result of the winter Olympic games. The Beijing 2022 Olympic Games will rely on this freshly constructed infrastructure in Zhangjiakou City, which is a $2 billion project that began in June 2020 to transmit wind and solar power and use pumped hydro storage to control output changes.