The impact of clean development mechanism on energy-water-carbon nexus optimization in Hebei, China: A hierarchical model based discussion

Clean development mechanism (CDM) is an important principle in CO2 emissions mitigation since it was proposed. However, there will be a long way for the large-scale application of CDM in China, for thermal power is still in the dominant position, while renewable power is far from being competitive. In this study, a mix integer bi-level hierarchical programming model (MIBLHP) is developed to investigate the potential impact of the CDM application on the regional energy-water-carbon nexus optimization in electric power system in China. The model integrates the advantages of bi-level programming and mix integer liner programming in dealing with conflicting objectives with hierarchical and sequential decision making process and help to achieve the optimized strategies with the highest overall system satisfaction degree. Results show that CDM will play an important role in the regional energy-water-carbon nexus optimization, the MIBLHP is able to stabilize the increasing trend of system cost and make better tradeoffs between the economic and environmental goals. Optimal strategies including power generation and capacity expansion path, system cost control, CO2 emissions abatement strategies, water consumption and waste water discharge are presented. The system would reach the supreme satisfaction degrees (λ = 0.934) when the CO2 reduction level is 40%, which means that every part of the system has achieved the best condition. The proposed model has great potential in dealing with similar regional planning problems in energy-water-carbon nexus optimization.