CO₂ emission prediction based on carbon verification data of 17 thermal power enterprises in Gansu Province

The energy and power industry is an important field for CO₂ emission reduction. The CO₂ emitted by thermal power enterprises is a major cause of global climate change, and also a key challenge for China to achieve the goals of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality." Therefore, it is essential to scientifically and accurately predict the CO₂ emissions of key thermal power enterprises in the region. This will guide carbon reduction strategies and policy recommendations for leaders, and also provide a valuable reference for similar regions globally. This study utilizes the factor analysis method to extract the common factors influencing CO₂ emissions based on the carbon verification data of 17 thermal power enterprises in Gansu Province. Additionally, the DISO (distance between indices of simulation and observation) index is employed to comprehensively evaluate three prediction models, namely multiple linear regression, support vector regression, and GA-BP neural network. Ultimately, this study provides a reasonable prediction of CO₂ emissions for the aforementioned enterprises in Gansu Province. The results show that the three common factors obtained by factor analysis, namely energy consumption and output factor, energy quality factor, and energy efficiency factor, can effectively predict the CO₂ emissions from thermal power enterprises. In the three prediction models, GA-BP neural network has the best overall performance with DISO value of 0.95, RMSE value of 11848.236, and MAE value of 7880.543. Over the period 2022-2030, CO₂ emissions from 17 thermal power enterprises in Gansu Province are predicted to increase. Under the low-carbon, scenario baseline, and high-carbon scenarios, the CO₂ emissions will reach 71.58 Mt, 79.25 Mt, and 87.97 Mt, respectively, by 2030.