Yan Jinguang, Director of the Review Division of the National Energy Conservation Center: The "double control" of energy consumption and the "double control" of carbon emissions are in the same line
"At present, 85% of carbon dioxide emissions come from fossil energy. Energy conservation is a fundamental measure to achieve the 'double carbon' goal. The 'double control' of energy consumption and the 'double control' of carbon emissions are in the same vein." Recently, Yan Jinguang, director of the Review Division of the National Energy Conservation Center, emphasized at the launch of the National Petroleum and Chemical Industry's 2023 Energy Efficiency "Leaders" and Water Efficiency "Leaders" and the Exchange and Promotion Conference on Energy Saving, Water Saving and Low-Carbon Technology.
Yan Jinguang pointed out that in recent years, my country's total industrial energy consumption has increased, and the overall energy consumption intensity reduction target has fallen short of expectations. After deducting raw material energy and non-fossil energy from 2021 to 2023, the energy consumption intensity has only dropped by 7.3%, even in 2024. The goal of reducing energy consumption intensity by 2.5% will be successfully achieved, and the overall goal of reducing energy consumption by 13.5% during the "14th Five-Year Plan" will also be extremely stressful, and the pressure to achieve the "double carbon" goal will be even greater. At the same time, during the implementation of policies related to "double control" of energy consumption, problems such as some petrochemical projects could not be implemented because they failed to meet the targets, which formed a rigid constraint on the development of the petrochemical industry. Therefore, the "dual control" of energy consumption needs to be shifted to the "dual control" of carbon emissions.
"The industry's shift to 'dual control' of carbon emissions does not mean that it no longer carries out energy-saving controls. Instead, it allows companies to actively introduce renewable energy such as green electricity in the transformation from 'energy' to 'carbon'. Although the two are not completely equivalent, the overall goal is to reduce energy consumption intensity and control the total energy consumption." Yan Jinguang said.
At the same time, Yan Jinguang also pointed out that the current transformation of the petrochemical industry from "dual control" of energy consumption to "dual control" of carbon emissions still requires the joint efforts of the government, industry and enterprises to achieve convergence and transition. The government needs to regard carbon emission intensity as a binding target, establish a comprehensive evaluation and assessment system target system, carbon emission budget management and other systems, and decompose carbon dual control indicators into carbon emission reduction responsibilities that local governments and enterprises need to implement; The industry needs to find out the bottom line and emission reduction potential, calculate carbon emissions from energy activities and industrial production processes, improve the project energy conservation review system, incorporate greenhouse gas emissions into the environmental impact assessment system, and establish a national carbon footprint background database and a national greenhouse gas emission factor database; Enterprises need to establish management systems for key energy-using units and carbon emission reduction units, carry out corporate carbon reporting and carbon verification, and improve carbon trading and voluntary emission reduction trading markets.
Talking about the work that the petrochemical industry should focus on in the future, Yan Jinguang put forward seven suggestions. The first is to carry out diagnosis and analysis of energy conservation and carbon reduction, energy conservation and emission reduction potential analysis, study the industry's "dual control" goal of carbon emissions, and promote energy budget and carbon budget management; the second is to combine the "two new"(Large-scale equipment updates, trade-in of consumer goods) and ultra-long-term special treasury bonds to promote energy efficiency diagnosis and energy conservation and carbon reduction transformation; Third, make relevant preparations for energy conservation review of new projects and increase carbon emission evaluation, as well as energy conservation review and acceptance of projects; Fourth, do a good job in filling in, accounting and selecting conversion coefficients for raw materials; fifth, to better consume renewable energy such as developing distributed photovoltaics, actively purchase green certificates; Sixth, actively participate in the formulation of standards and rules related to carbon management, carbon monitoring, and carbon footprint, and strive for the right to speak in the industry; seventh, actively promote low-carbon pilot demonstrations, select and promote energy efficiency "leaders", and create a carbon emission reduction "leader".
"The energy efficiency 'leader' work in the petrochemical industry has played a very important driving and demonstration role. It is hoped that follow-up industries can continue to lead green and high-quality industrial development around carbon emission reduction." Yan Jinguang said.
