Case study of an industrial park toward zero carbon emission

Industrial park shoulders heavy responsibilities for economic development, and in the meantime, acts the role as energy consumer and carbon emitter. Under the background of holding the average global temperature increase limited in 2 °C compared to the pre-industrial level, which was proposed in the Paris Agreement, the development of zero carbon emission at the industrial park level is of great importance. This study investigated how to realize zero carbon emission at an industrial park level. In addition, a practical case study of the Southern China Traditional Chinese Medicine Industrial Park located in the Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province of China was conducted. Scenario analyses were projected to realize zero carbon emission in this industrial park and the results show that zero carbon emission can be realized under all the three scenarios. Economic assessments found that purchasing carbon offsets get the minimum cost effectiveness under current market situation. However, purchasing carbon offset may not be the best choice from the aspect of absolute reduction. Sensitivity analyses illustrate that the cost effectiveness of carbon reduction is remarkably influenced by the carbon price and solar energy cost reduction ratio. Meanwhile, applying large-scale renewable energy and producing more carbon offset can harvest more economic and carbon reduction benefits when the current solar energy cost has been reduced by 90%. Moreover, challenges of building zero-carbon industrial park as well as the corresponding solution schemes were discussed.