IRSP (integrated resource strategic planning) with interconnected smart grids in integrating renewable energy and implementing DSM (demand side management) in China

The China's electricity consumption was 4966 TWh in 2012, which is the world top electricity consumer. The low carbon electricity is one of the key issues of its sustainable development. IRSP (integrated resource strategic planning) is a useful tool to implement DSM (demand side management) and power planning on the supply side. However, the role of interconnected smart grids with fast growing cross-region transmission is not considered in the IRSP. Therefore, the paper proposes the model of IRSP with interconnected smart grids to integrate more renewable power generation to the grids and implement more DSM projects, which is called as IRSP-sgs (IRSP smart grids) model. Two scenarios are projected to study the impact of cross-region transmission on low carbon electricity by using the IRSP-sgs model until 2025 in China. Results show that the scenario with enhanced cross-region transmission helps to reduce electricity generation by 784.38 TWh and reduce CO2 emission by 999.57 million tons during 2013–2025, since the multi-regional power operation can integrate more than 488.30 TWh renewable generation into the grids and implement more DSM projects to substitute generation. In addition, it also provides tremendous opportunities to improve the stable operation of the power system.