Assessment of the Renewables’ Competitiveness in the Chinese Electricity Market

The challenge of a rapidly shrinking amount of greenhouse gases emitted in the air has become even more evident for China in recent years, and it is a matter of time until Chinese government face intense external pressure from key political players. Therefore, it is crucial for the Asian giant to ensure higher energy security through diversifying its electricity sources, which implies expanding the network of power stations generating electricity from the renewables. The proposed research aims to analyze Chinese market of renewables, provide a comprehensive overview of factors determining prices on renewables and assess the cost-effectiveness of hydro, solar and wind power. Although Chinese energy market has been an object of study for years and has been analyzed by many scholars, we still observe the lack of literature on the comparison of the most widespread types of renewable energy sources. In order to conduct a more detailed research and fill the literature gap we will apply quantitative analysis of the statistics and qualitative methods where needed based on ecological footprint concept and SWOT model. The results of the paper may reveal the importance of green sources implementation in Chinese electricity supply system in general and become a theoretical base for further research.