Carbon neutrality refers to the calculation by enterprises, groups or individuals of the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated directly or indirectly in a certain period of time, in the form of energy conservation and emission reduction to offset their own carbon dioxide emissions, achieve "zero emission" of carbon dioxide.

The 2021 comes at the beginning of China's 14th five-year plan. It is also the first year of China's "carbon peak and carbon neutrality" journey. Relevant policies and plans will be introduced intensively. Greener and lower-carbon economic development will be the main theme of China's development in the next four decades, the realization of "carbon peak, carbon neutral" means that more electricity will replace fossil energy consumption, power demand will be greatly increased.

Copper, second only to silver in electrical conductivity, is an essential Non-ferrous metal for the development of clean energy and end-to-end electrification. Therefore, in the process of achieving "carbon peak, Carbon Neutrality" , it is bound to increase the demand for copper from both power generation and power consumption.

1. Policy Path to "carbon peak, carbon neutrality"

Over the past 30 years, China's total carbon emissions have been on the rise, reaching 9.497 billion tons in 2018, with electricity and heat accounting for 52 percent of the total, according to the IEA, secondly, the industrial sector (28%) , the transportation sector (10%) , and other sectors account for 10% of the total emissions. It can be seen that the power sector is the main source of carbon emissions in China, and the deep decarbonization of electricity is the core sector to promote the low-carbon transformation of the whole society. On this basis, it is also necessary to superimpose the electrification of the terminal energy industry to improve the rate of electrification in the industrial and transportation fields.

1.1 deep decarbonization of electricity

Power deep decarbonization is to adjust China's energy consumption structure. According to the IEA, coal accounted for 61.8% of China's energy consumption in 2018, while natural gas accounted for 7.3% and crude oil 3.2% , compared with the energy structure of developed economies such as the United States, Europe and Japan, China's fossil energy consumption is too high, and Coal, which has the largest carbon footprint among fossil fuels, accounts for a much higher share of electricity generation than any other major economy. In order to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, it is necessary to adjust the energy structure that is dominated by fossil fuels to that of non-fossil fuels. The secretary-general mentioned that non-fossil fuels will account for 25 per cent of total energy consumption by 2030, from the planning point of view, non-fossil energy consumption in 2050 to reach 80% , deep decarbonization of the power sector is the future direction of certainty. For the development of non-fossil Energy, biomass, geothermal energy is relatively small, only in the Yalong River Salween River hydropower development, some undeveloped, hydropower space is also relatively limited. Safety concerns have led to much smaller-than-expected nuclear power construction. So in reverse, the future development of non-fossil energy mainly rely on wind power and photovoltaic.

1.2 increase the rate of terminal electrification

The ratio of electric energy to end-use energy consumption is one of the important indexes to measure the level of electrification development. In recent years, electric energy substitution has developed rapidly in the fields of transportation and industry. In 2019, the proportion of China's terminal electricity consumption reached 26 percent, and the industrial and transportation sectors accounted for 25 percent and 3 percent respectively, the National Energy Administration's "2020 energy work guidance" proposed that electric energy accounts for about 27 percent of the final energy consumption. In December 2019, the State Grid Corporation of China made an important judgment to realize "two 50 percent" by 2050, that is, "by 2050 China's energy clean-up rate will reach 50 percent and the terminal electrification rate will reach 50 percent" , and the terminal electrification rate is expected to rise to 32 percent by 2025, 40% by 2035,52% by 2050. In the industrial field, the proportion of electric energy will gradually increase to 43% by 2035, and continue to climb to 52% by 2050. The transportation sector is the sector with the fastest growth rate of electrification. Under the policy of "new energy automobile industry development plan (2021-2035) " , China's new energy vehicles will develop rapidly, pushing the rate of electrification of transportation from nearly 3% in 2017 to 13% in 2035, 35% by 2050.

2."Carbon Peak, carbon neutrality" driving copper consumption

The policy path of carbon neutrality is deep decarbonization of Electricity and development of non-fossil energy, mainly wind power and photovoltaic power. Research shows that renewable energy facilities require several times as much copper as conventional energy facilities; Second, increasing the rate of electrification in the terminal area, changing from coal to electricity in the industrial area, and developing new energy vehicles in the transportation area.

2.1 generation terminals: estimation of copper consumption from renewable energy sources

The new energy installation data for 2020 released recently by the National Energy Administration shows that in 2020 the country added 71.67 million kilowatts of wind power and 48.2 million kilowatts of photovoltaic power, adding about 120 million kilowatts of wind power, the total installed capacity of wind power is 281 million kilowatts, and the total installed capacity of photovoltaic power is 253 million kilowatts. The general secretary has set the cumulative installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic power at 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030, and according to the requirement that non-fossil energy consumption account for 25 per cent of the total installed capacity by 2030, based on this, the industry estimates that the total amount of non-fossil energy sources, such as wind, water, nuclear power, will reach 1.6 billion kilowatts. The above estimates mainly come from wind and solar power generation. It is estimated that the total amount of wind and solar energy will reach 1.5 billion kilowatts by then, china Photovoltaic Industry Association forecast that during the "14th five-year" period, the average annual installed scale of photovoltaic new units is generally expected to be 70 million kilowatts, optimistic forecast is 90 million kilowatts. "2020 Beijing Wind Energy Conference" , more than 400 wind power enterprises for the first time in history launched a joint declaration, the declaration pledged to increase the annual average installed wind power more than 50 million kilowatts. After 2025, China should add no less than 60 Gigawatts of new wind power capacity per year, and at least 800 gigawatts by 2030.

According to research data released by the National Copper Industry Association, the average amount of copper used in renewable energy systems is 8 to 12 times greater than that used in traditional power generation systems, with wind turbines using about 6 tons of copper per megawatt, photovoltaics uses about 4 tons of copper per megawatt. According to the above calculation of wind power and photovoltaic installed capacity, it is estimated that wind power will consume 1.5 million tons of copper in 2021-2025,1.12 million tons of copper in PV, the total annual copper consumption of wind power plus pv is 524,000 tons, the total copper consumption of wind power plus pv is 1.8 million tons and the copper consumption of PV is 1.12 million tons in 2026-2030, the total copper consumption of wind power + PV is 584,000 tons per year.

2.2 POWER END: Industrial Coal to power copper

According to statistics, copper demand in the industrial sector is about 1.3 million tons, of which 54 percent is used in transformers and motors, that is, 702,000 tons of copper consumption, the remaining 46 percent is in non-electromechanical equipment. The electrification of the industrial sector in the future will increase copper consumption in transformers and electric motors from coal to electricity. The current rate of electrification in the industrial sector will be 25% and will reach 43% by 2035. Therefore, the rate of electrification in the industrial sector will increase by 18% , mechanical and electrical equipment will consume 1.21 million tons of copper by 2035, an increase of about 34,000 tons of copper per year.

2.3 power terminals: increased consumption of copper as a new energy source

According to our calculations in the December 2020 Non-ferrous metal, the consumption of copper for new energy vehicles is approximately 60 kg for electric vehicles and 83 kg for electric vehicles, assuming a 2:8 ratio of plug in to pure electric vehicles, on this basis, we calculate that the copper consumption of new energy vehicles will be 470,000 tons by 2025. Meanwhile, in terms of the copper consumption of charging piles, the ratio of vehicle to pile will be 3.2:1 in 2020, and the long-term target will be 1:1. Taking into account the increment of vehicle to pile ratio in 2020, suppose the ratio of car to pile reaches 1.5:1 by 2025, and the ratio of car to pile increases at a constant rate between 2020 and 2025. Suppose the copper consumption of single charging pile remains constant, and the ratio of household charging pile: common DC charging pile: common AC charging pile remains constant in 2020, it is estimated that 87,000 tons of copper will be consumed by the pile in 2025, and 557,500 tons of copper will be consumed by the new energy vehicle and the matching charging pile in 2025. The average consumption of new energy vehicles is 290,000 tons of copper in 2021-2025

3.Conclusion

Guided by the goal of Carbon Neutrality, China will focus on reducing carbon emissions from two aspects: deep decarbonization of electricity and increasing end-of-line electrification rate. Deep decarbonization of electricity will promote the development of clean energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaic power, and increasing the terminal electrification rate will make the industrial energy consumption of coal to electricity, transportation new energy vehicles to develop vigorously. It is estimated that during the period of the 14th five-year plan, the annual average installed capacity of wind power is 50 million kwh, leading to an average annual consumption of 300,000 tons of copper and 70 million kwh of photovoltaic energy, leading to an average annual consumption of 224,000 tons of copper, in the industrial sector, 34,000 tons of copper will be added each year to coal-to-electricity consumption, and 290,000 tons of copper will be added to new energy vehicles. Overall, it is estimated that the carbon neutral target will increase China's copper consumption by 850,000 tons per year during the 14th five-year plan period.

 Source: Jianxin Futures