Beijing's Natural Gas Market Study And MARKAL Model Application

In recent years, the economy of Beijing developed rapidly with huge energy consumption. Meanwhile Coal is the main fuel in the energy consumption structure, causing serious air pollution problems. In order to build a modern international metropolis, in the future Beijing will actively introduce electricity, natural gas and other clean energy to adjust the energy structure, and to found market-oriented clean energy supply system to harmonize the development of energy, economy and environment. With the trend of international and domestic gas reserves, production and consumer market, natural gas will be the fastest growing fuel in energy markets in future.In this paper, with the assumption of Beijing's future economic and social development, useful energy demand for different end-use sectors are projected on the basis on energy consumption intensity and activity level. In addition, both the energy supply and demand technologies in Beijing are investigated to get the data needed. And Beijing natural gas market research MARKAL model is established.According to the basic energy structure adjustment and development plan of Beijing, baseline scenario of Beijing's natural gas market was generated. In the MARKAL model, the technology/fule mix is optimized to minimize the total energy system cost. Beijing's future structure of primary energy consumption, energy supply and production, final energy consumption, pollutant emissions and energy system cost etc. were derived from the model.On the basis of the baseline scenario analysis, according to the future possible changes of energy resources, economic growth and environmental constraints, it generated different policy scenarios such as emission constrant, useful energy demand change, and natural gas resources and price change. Different policy scenarios were simulated to conclude that: 1) With stringer emission constrains natural gas consumption growth trend would be even more significant and the marginal costs will rise; 2) With the changes in end-use demand, changes in natural gas consumption would fluctuate in wide range; 3) With the increase of the Gas resourse, it couldfurther adjust the energy structure and reduce the coal consumption in demand sectors.Finally, under the comprehensive study of energy system, economy and environment in various policy scenarios, suggestions for Beijing's future gas market development were addressed: 1) To accelerate planning and introduction of future gas sources; 2) To steadily increase natural gas consumption in demand sectors; 3) To take appropriate measures to promote coal shift to gas; 4) To further adjust the gas price system for different users.