Investment Estimation in the Energy and Power Sector towards Carbon Neutrality Target: A Case Study of China

The transition towards low-carbon energy and power has been extensively studied by research institutions and scholars. However, the investment demand during the transition process has received insufficient attention. To address this gap, an energy investment estimation method is proposed in this paper, which takes the unit construction costs and potential development of major technology in the energy and power sector as input. The proposed estimation method can comprehensively assess the investment demand for various energy sources in different years, including coal, oil, natural gas, biomass, power, and hydrogen energy. Specifically, we applied this method to estimate the investment demand of China’s energy and power sector from 2020 to 2060 at five year intervals. The results indicate that China’s cumulative energy investment demand over this period is approximately 127 trillion CNY, with the power sector accounting for the largest proportion at 92.35%, or approximately 117 trillion CNY. The calculated cumulative investment demand is consistent with the findings of several influential research institutions, providing validation for the proposed method.