‘Chinese Renewable Energy Policy – Policy Implementation, and Participation’

Yixin Dai, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University

In order to reach its ambitious emissions targets, China has been promoting renewable energy through a series of top-down policies since 2006. Recent successes have seen wind turbine installation capacity exceed 100GW in 2014, and nuclear installation capacity reach 23GW in June 2015. The questions are: can we attribute this to strong central government? What is the role of local implementation in promoting renewable energy policies? Will any bottom-up effort influence future development of Chinese renewable energy policy?  This seminar addresses these questions by drawing on two of the speaker’s papers on the implementation gap and perception gap in Chinese renewable energy (RE) policy development.

Yixin Dai is an assistant professor in School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University. Her research interests focus on theory of innovation and technology transfer, technological innovation in the environment and energy area, and technology governance. Her current research studies different low carbon innovation paths between China and other parts of the world, technology governance at local levels, as well as the national innovation system in China.