In recent years, with the gradual implementation of relevant supporting policies and measures, digital production, digital operation and digital life are becoming the new normal of our society. According to statistics, the scale of China's digital economy will reach 39.2 trillion yuan in 2020, accounting for 38.6% of GDP, and the growth rate is more than three times that of GDP. As the main economic form after agricultural economy and industrial economy, the specific application of the new production mode with data as the core production factor and digital technology as the driving force in the energy field will help realize the vision of peak carbon dioxide emission and carbon neutrality.
Low-carbon transformation of energy industry is the key to achieve deep emission reduction.
At present, China is in a critical period of low-carbon energy transformation, and many structural contradictions such as excessive energy, superior structure and low efficiency are still outstanding. Compared with developed countries, it takes China a shorter time, a wider scope, more difficulties and an extremely arduous task to achieve the long-term goal of peak carbon dioxide emission and carbon neutrality. It needs to realize systematic low-carbon life reform in the whole social and economic system, energy system and technical system. In fact, in the process of promoting digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, next-generation information technologies such as big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and 5G industry will accelerate the deep integration of traditional energy industry and digital industry, build an internationally competitive digital energy industry cluster, and optimize energy production and consumption, energy supply and demand, thus directly or indirectly reducing carbon emissions generated by energy activities.
Digital technology empowers and helps achieve the goal of "double carbon"
With regard to realizing the digital economy and helping to achieve the goal of "double carbon" by empowering the energy sector, the focus can be discussed from three aspects.
First of all, as far as the energy supply side is concerned, data crawler and digital twin technology reconstruct the modern energy management system. Based on information intelligent system and deep learning algorithm, energy manufacturers can use the massive data generated every day to predict the trend and fluctuation of future power demand, thus reducing their own energy project expenditure; By observing the real-time monitoring parameters in the process of energy production and taking into account the proportion coordination and matching between raw materials, production managers can improve the efficiency of processing and transformation and the efficiency of energy transportation, distribution and storage, and greatly reduce the management cost of production links in the traditional sense. Zhejiang electric power system carbon emission monitoring platform is a typical example. Real-time monitoring of carbon emissions of enterprises and equipment has effectively promoted the intelligentization and intensification of energy production process. In addition, digital technologies such as Internet of Things and cloud computing support the popularization and application of platform economy and * * * enjoyment economy in energy digital industry, and new energy development and utilization modes such as energy futures management, environmental pollution trust and virtual power plant have sprung up, further promoting the reconstruction of energy utilization mode, the evolution of energy business model and the optimization of energy resource allocation, and improving the refined level of energy supply-side management and the overall efficiency of energy utilization.
Second, as far as the energy demand side is concerned, the digital economy has injected new vitality into the existing energy demand system. The application of digital technology helps to promote the disclosure of climate information such as carbon emissions, and makes it possible to lock in carbon emissions sources, detect carbon emissions and calculate other environmental indicators, which creates opportunities for the formation of a unified national carbon emissions trading market and the role of related supporting facilities such as carbon registration, settlement and measurement.
Big data and digital twins can help decision makers better understand the differences of carbon emission reduction costs in different cities, industries and enterprises, help the government to carry out scientific planning and macro-control, and achieve demand-side management of carbon dioxide at the lowest economic cost; The digital economy accelerates the technological progress of enterprises, thus reducing the intensity of energy utilization. Because the digital economy has improved the refinement of production processes and the numerical control of industrial equipment, it has improved the production efficiency of enterprises, especially the energy utilization efficiency of products and technological processes. Under the vision of carbon neutrality, enterprises have the incentive to continuously invest the remaining funds in low-carbon innovation and R&D, so as to sell the remaining carbon quotas with compensation in the future.
In addition, the digital economy has strongly promoted the transformation of the economic structure to green and low carbon. Data production factors have promoted profound changes in the primary, secondary and tertiary industries with their own characteristics, and promoted the integration and transformation of transportation, medical care, construction and other industries. The change, optimization and upgrading of industrial structure have brought about the low-carbon transformation of energy demand structure, accelerated the transformation from high carbon to low carbon, and replaced fossil energy and "double high" production with clean technology and green production.
Thirdly, as far as energy trading is concerned, digital technology alleviates information asymmetry and time uncertainty, and deep learning algorithm optimizes the signal transmission process of energy production and consumption, energy supply and demand, and reduces the invalid losses in the process of energy trading. In the past, information asymmetry was an important reason for the distortion of traditional energy structure and low allocation efficiency. However, in the digital economy, platform enterprises have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, and * * * enjoys the spurt of economic development. The main body of energy market has realized point-to-point accurate trading through multilateral platforms, which greatly improves the efficiency of energy trading and resource allocation.
Digital supply chain and blockchain technology guide the flattening of energy system. For example, encourage electricity and gas users to participate in peak shaving and peak shifting independently. Distributed energy transforms traditional passive recipients into stable active energy providers. In fact, due to the particularity of the energy industry, the traditional energy trading links are mostly one-way information flow, and the response speed and stability of the system are facing great challenges. The main operation mode of the energy system blessed by digital technology is decentralization, that is, from centralized large energy network to distributed two-way interaction. In addition, blockchain, financial technology and digital twinning have promoted the construction and improvement of relevant mechanisms and systems such as carbon footprint, green securities and green finance, which will also promote the establishment of multi-agent and diversified energy trading market in low-carbon life.
The digital economy of energy is not only to empower the energy system with digital technology, but also to introduce the new development concept, new factor organization mode and new market rules unique to the digital age into the existing energy system, that is, to abandon the energy field with data as the core production factor and digital technology as the driving force, so that the energy revolution and the digital revolution can be deeply integrated to benefit people's livelihood, thus building a cleaner, more efficient, safer and more sustainable modern energy system and finally achieving the goal of "double carbon".
(Author: Tsinghua University University of Economics)