Low-carbon transformation path of power mix in the Yangtze River Delta region

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region is highly dependent on coal resources, forming an energy and electricity consumption inertial mass dominated by fossil fuel and maintaining a high-carbon economic growth pattern for a long time. This study aims to optimize the power mix and transmission and promote carbon emission reduction in the power sector in the YRD region. This study has constructed a Mixed-Integer-Linear programming (MILP) model, improve the flexibility of the power system through inter-regional transmission and storage, and identify the key factors affecting the low-carbon transformation. We simulate the optimal path of carbon emissions reduction through multi-scenario simulation of power mixture optimization and transmission layout adjustment. We designed various scenarios that changed the level of generation, transmission and other factors to simulate the carbon emissions evolution path. This study draws some key conclusions that are different from those of other regions, such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. The results show that under the combined effect of high carbon emission reduction costs and policy constraints, the more stringent carbon emission regulation scenario will significantly reduce carbon emissions, and the power mix will shift from high carbon to clean. The low-level regional development (L-RD) and high-level regional development (H-RD) scenarios have similar infrastructure construction costs, while the H-RD scenario can reduce the marginal cost of power generation through transmission, so its total cost is reduced. When the regional interconnection degree improves H-RD, marginal generation and transmission costs will reduce due to the free flow of electricity within the region. This approach will generate higher economic and environmental benefits by using energy storage to make up for the intermittency of renewable energy power generation and ensuring the stability of the power supply when reducing the proportion of thermal power.