Enhancing carbon neutrality through renewable energy and demand-side management

Year 2025, Volume: 11 Issue: 5, 1540 - 1551, 21.10.2025

Yeqing Zhu Yu Wang Shen Hou Yanjun Chen Luzheng Zhang

Abstract

In the context of China’s dual carbon goals—carbon peaking and carbon neutrality—the implementation of high-efficiency carbon reduction and control technologies is of paramount importance. This study evaluates the impact of renewable energy integration and energy management strategies on carbon emissions in a research and office institute park located in Nanjing, China. A 1.162 MW photovoltaic system was deployed to supply on-site electricity demand. The system exhibited substantial performance, achieving electricity self-sufficiency rates exceeding 100% on 50 days and surpassing 50% on 58.8% of the monitored days over the study period. To enhance energy efficiency on the demand side, the air conditioning temperature set point was raised from 25 °C to 27 °C. This adjustment led to a 15.1% reduction in air conditioning energy consumption and increased the average summer photovoltaic self-sufficiency rate from 51.27% to 56.85%.
In addition, a carbon flux tower was installed to facilitate continuous monitoring of carbon flux and atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. The measured data indicated consistently low carbon dioxide concentrations and negative carbon flux values, with average concentrations of 464.87 ppm and mean CO₂ flux of –0.0087 mg/m²·s, respectively. These results underscore the effectiveness of integrated renewable energy systems and active demand-side management in reducing operational carbon emissions in urban building clusters.

Keywords

Carbon Reduction , Integrated Renewable Energy Systems , Carbon Dioxide Flux , Research and Office Parks

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