Air pollutant emission from the underestimated households' coal consumption source in China

In order to improve the regional air quality, many control strategies have been developed by Chinese government for reducing air pollutant emission from power plants, industrial and transport sources during the past decade. However, little attention has been paid to residential combustion sources. To fill the knowledge gap, a series of surveys were carried out to investigate the residential energy use in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region during the period of 2013-2014. Study shows that the actual average amount of residential coal consumption is over 0.7tyr^-1 per capita in 2013, which is much higher than that of 0.15tyr^-1 per capita reported in the 2014 China Energy Statistical Yearbook (CESY). Combining the investigated activities data with the best available emission factors (EFs), bottom-up method was used to evaluate the potential air pollutant emissions from residential coal combustion in BTH region in 2013. The results indicate that Baoding is the top contributor to the whole BTH region and accounts for approximately 15% of the regional residential emissions in 2013. The spatial pattern of air pollutants shows that high emissions locate in the southeast, along the Yanshan and Taihang Mountains, where much more rural people live and coal combustion is prevalent in winter. The future emission scenario at the end of the 13th Five Year Plan (in 2020) was also predicted based on the policy guidance for the residential coal consumptions in the BTH region. The scenario analysis indicates that air pollutant emissions will drop substantially around 90% because more strict rules will be made for reducing the residential coal consumption. With combined survey information and statistical data, the uncertainty of the emission inventory which was established in this study for the residential sector in the BTH region is reduced and the emission inventory is more reliable for air quality decision making.