Anhui: "Zero-Carbon City" Fuyang Practice: From Green Transportation to Prefabricated Buildings

Achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality is a broad and profound economic and social systemic change. On November 8, the first "Zero Carbon China" standard general rules were released during the 4th CIIE. Zhang Jie, vice chairman and secretary-general of the Energy Investment Committee of the China Investment Association, introduced that the "Zero Carbon China" standard system consists of three levels: standard general rules, standard rules and implementation guidelines.

The General Principles of Standards released this time is a basic common standard, which mainly defines related concepts, clarifies the overall requirements, index system, and general evaluation methods and evaluation procedures.

Zhang Jie told China Business News that the "Zero Carbon China" standard system is the first comprehensive and systematic carbon neutral standard system. The general principles of the standard released this time are to unify a standard. "We are going to spend three years to complete the construction of this standard system. The next step of the zero-carbon China standard system will be to put forward ideas and ideas on what is zero-carbon energy, what is zero-carbon transportation, and what is zero-carbon building."

At this year's CIIE, many exhibitors brought "low-carbon" and "zero-carbon" gifts, allowing the public to see the future of green life in advance. However, does "zero carbon" mean "zero emissions"? Under the "dual carbon" goal, how will the city's low-carbon and green transformation be achieved?

Fuyang's zero-carbon city life

At present, Fuyang City, Anhui Province is building a national zero-carbon China standard pilot.

At the 2021 International Carbon Neutrality and Green Investment Conference held on the 8th, Sun Zhengdong, Secretary of the Fuyang Municipal Party Committee, introduced the details of the construction of a zero-carbon city in Fuyang. It is understood that Fuyang is focusing on pilot projects such as zero-carbon energy, zero-carbon transportation, zero-carbon buildings, and zero-carbon communities.

The reporter noted that in the field of transportation, Fuyang took the lead in making a breakthrough from buses and will fully promote the development of electrification and hydrogen energy. In the alternative, electric vehicles will play an important role.

Zhang Jie said that the future of electric vehicles will also make a big difference in urban life. In addition to its own transportation properties, it can also become a mobile energy storage tool with important functions in the future. That is to say, if electric vehicles have sufficient power, they can be used for peak shaving and realize the management of a virtual power plant. However, Zhang Jie also said frankly that energy supply is still an obstacle in order to achieve zero-carbon transportation.

In an interview, Zhang Jie also had greater expectations for the construction of zero-carbon transportation in Fuyang. He said, "At present, the construction of a zero-carbon transportation system has yet to be defined, and how to accurately define zero-carbon transportation has yet to be completed. I hope that the Fuyang standard pilot can give us more enlightenment in these aspects."

In addition to transportation, low-carbon and zero-carbon buildings are also the focus of Fuyang's construction of a zero-carbon city. According to the city's plan, during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, on the basis of 10.14 million square meters of prefabricated buildings in the city and 3.65 million square meters of completed areas, the next step will start with public buildings and gradually promote them to civilian buildings. Promote green design, green construction, and green operations, vigorously develop the green building materials industry based on prefabricated buildings, encourage the use of building roofs and walls to develop distributed energy and energy storage systems such as photovoltaics, and realize two-way interaction and dynamic balance with the external energy system.

Zero carbon brings challenges and opportunities

"When it comes to'zero carbon', it is easy for the public to misunderstand it as absolute zero emissions, but in fact this is impossible to achieve." Zhang Jie told CBN, "Zero carbon refers to how to achieve zero carbon emissions."

Zhang Jie said that there are many ways to achieve net zero carbon emissions, such as carbon neutrality, forestry carbon sinks, or the complete realization of zero carbon dioxide emissions through technological innovation. However, the realization of "zero carbon" is a systematic project, which is not only related to the supply-side reform, that is, the substitution of carbon energy such as coal, oil and natural gas, but also the change of the consumer side in the future.

In Zhang Jie's view, dual-carbon development should not be seen as a burden, but as an opportunity.

Taking the consumer side as an example, the problem of "zero carbon" will be involved in transportation and buildings in cities. At the same time, as the concept of low-carbon environmental protection becomes more popular, the application scenarios of zero-carbon will become broader. "Zero-carbon communities", "zero-carbon villages", "zero-carbon schools", "zero-carbon hospitals", and "zero-carbon factories" all have yet to be developed and constructed.

Zhang Jie said that there are still many difficulties to overcome in the realization of a zero-carbon city.

He said that to achieve zero-carbon, the first thing to do is to solve the problem of clean energy from the source, that is, to replace it with zero-carbon energy. However, it is very important that there is no uniform standard for what kind of energy is classified as zero-carbon energy. In other words, the definition and understanding of zero-carbon energy is actually lacking.

In addition, the zero-carbon scenario application currently lacks a standard system. He said, “Zero Carbon should not only be verbal, but a set of recognizable, traceable, and verifiable data. Therefore, we plan to spend three years to complete the construction of this standard system.”

Standardization is not only an important technical means of modern social governance, but also an effective technical way to support the construction of ecological civilization and the realization of the dual-carbon goal. The Energy Investment Committee of China Investment Association and China Classification Society Quality Certification Corporation jointly launched the construction of a zero-carbon China standard system.

Zhang Jie expressed the hope that through the establishment of a zero-carbon Chinese standard system, the development of zero-carbon industries can be regulated and promoted, so that our zero-carbon standards can be in line with international standards, especially in the United Nations system to have a set of "Chinese standards." There is also the promotion of green investment through dual-carbon industry and dual-carbon technological innovation.