Why is 2025 considered the year for zero-carbon park construction? What is the overall path for its creation?

Why is 2025 considered the year for zero-carbon park construction?

Recently, China has introduced a series of national and ministerial-level policies surrounding zero-carbon parks, forming a policy system from top-level design to specific implementation. This lays the foundation for the full-scale launch of zero-carbon park construction in 2025.

The Central Economic Work Conference held on December 12, 2024, first explicitly proposed the "establishment of a batch of zero-carbon parks" and listed it as one of the key tasks for 2025, providing top-level design direction and strategic guidance for zero-carbon park construction.

On December 13, 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a meeting, requiring the construction of a batch of zero-carbon factories and zero-carbon industrial parks to promote the large-scale and high-value utilization of industrial resources, incorporating zero-carbon parks into the key work of industrial green development.

On December 26, 2024, the National Conference on Information and Communication Technology further refined the path for the construction of zero-carbon parks, proposing to explore and promote
the construction of zero-carbon factories and zero-carbon parks to comprehensively improve the level of industrial resource conservation, intensive use, and recycling.

On January 3, 2025, Zhao Chenxin, Deputy Director of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated at a meeting that they would coordinate and plan the "14th Five-Year Plan" carbon peak action and accelerate the establishment of zero-carbon parks, zero-carbon communities, and zero-carbon villages.

On January 8, 2025, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the latest policy, encouraging the large-scale implementation of equipment upgrades using industrial parks and industrial clusters as carriers, focusing on supporting the application of high-end, intelligent, and green equipment. This policy provides specific support and financial guarantees for the facility upgrades of zero-carbon parks.

These policies fully reflect the important strategic position of zero-carbon park construction and lay a solid foundation for the nationwide promotion of zero-carbon parks in 2025. With the gradual refinement and implementation of policies, the construction of zero-carbon parks will be fully launched in 2025.

What is the overall path for creating zero-carbon parks?

Zero-carbon parks systematically integrate the "carbon neutrality" concept into park planning, construction, and management. They comprehensively utilize energy-saving, emission reduction, carbon sequestration, carbon capture, utilization, and carbon trading technologies or methods. Through the low-carbon and cyclical utilization of industries, facilities, and resources, they achieve near-zero or zero net carbon emissions within the park, achieving deep integration of production, ecology, and life.

Parks, as carriers of numerous industries, can be divided into industrial parks, commercial parks, and logistics parks, playing an important role in balancing economic development and low-carbon development. The organic combination of relevant policies, market demand, and core businesses will be a required course for most parks and enterprises in the future.

How are the sources of carbon emissions in a park classified?

A company's carbon emissions are typically divided into Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3. For manufacturing companies, such as power battery producers, Scope 1 and Scope 2 account for approximately 30%, while Scope 3 accounts for 70%.

Most of the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in industrial parks are related to energy supply, such as power and heating supply, and emissions from energy consumption. These can be essentially considered as emissions related to the energy system within the industrial park. On the other hand, important infrastructure in park construction generally includes buildings, roads, water supply, drainage, power supply, communication, networks, security, etc. Among these, HVAC, power supply, and water supply systems, which continuously generate emissions, have a high correlation with energy systems. Therefore, effectively reducing carbon emissions from the energy system of industrial parks is an important way to positively impact their overall Scope 1 and Scope 2 emission reduction targets.

How can carbon reduction in parks be made more efficient?

Based on the above analysis, reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in industrial parks through the energy system will significantly achieve Scope 3 emission reductions among various enterprises, achieving high efficiency.

To better understand the carbon reduction potential of the energy system in industrial parks, the energy system can be divided into three links: energy supply, energy distribution, and energy use.

Energy supply refers to the primary and secondary energy used to meet the energy consumption needs of various park scenarios. The primary energy directly used in parks is very limited, mostly concentrated in distributed energy systems adapted to local conditions, such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and natural gas. Most energy supply comes from internal and external secondary energy supplies, such as electricity from the grid or park power plants, coal products, coal gas, liquefied gas, and heat. The low-carbon level of energy supply largely determines the effectiveness of the entire park's carbon management and is an important link in achieving low-carbon operations.

Energy distribution, whose importance is often underestimated, is a basic link connecting the energy supply end and the energy use end. The energy distribution system is responsible for the transmission and control of various types of energy, including water, electricity, gas, and heat. In terms of electricity, the power distribution system connects the grid, distributed generation equipment, and power consumption equipment. The key technologies generally include primary power distribution systems, secondary power distribution (relay protection) systems, AC/DC equipment, energy storage and reactive power compensation systems, integrated energy management and control systems, and related information systems. Heat and water are also important parts of park energy distribution, with the heat part mainly including common heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and domestic and industrial hot water distribution pipelines and related systems. For industrial parks, there is usually a power energy center, where energy is generated and distributed to various process production sites and links.

Energy use in industrial parks mainly includes the following aspects: infrastructure, such as the energy consumption of factories, office buildings, warehouses, and public areas in the park; energy consumption in the main industrial production links, such as production line energy consumption; and energy consumption of park personnel transportation and other activities, such as vehicles.

What are the entry points for carbon reduction in industrial parks?

Industrial parks have high energy consumption, the access of new energy is insufficient or the cost is too high, the types of energy consumption needs are diverse and the system is complex, the demand for low carbon is high, the solutions are immature, the technology is mature, the process is complex, the difficulty of transformation and optimization is high, the supply chain is long, and the calculation and management of carbon emissions are complex. The entry points are as follows:

(1) Energy Supply: Purchasing green electricity (ensuring the stability of most electricity quality), constructing distributed energy systems suitable for local conditions (rooftop photovoltaics and other relatively mature technologies), and establishing energy supply and procurement strategies that can flexibly adjust based on factors such as policy, weather, market, and bulk commodity prices.

(2) Energy Distribution: Low-carbonization of power distribution equipment, using green gases, etc., constructing a digital power distribution system with both flexibility and resilience, meeting the flexible needs of distributed equipment access and source-load carbon footprint monitoring, and ensuring that the insulation performance of cold/heat and air conditioning duct networks and equipment meets relevant standards.

(3) Energy Use: Long-term optimization of production processes and workflows, gradually achieving lean management, reducing energy consumption per unit of production capacity. Automation and digital upgrading of major energy-consuming equipment, further improving overall production efficiency through the Internet of Things and big data technology, decarbonization of major industrial intermediate links, such as coal-to-electricity and hydrogen energy substitution technologies.

What are the entry points for carbon reduction in commercial parks?

Most of the energy consumption in commercial parks comes from buildings. Building energy efficiency needs to balance comfort and low-carbonization, and the cost and difficulty of renovating existing buildings are high. The entry points are as follows:

(1) Energy Supply: The energy demand of such parks is relatively stable and typical. According to local natural and policy conditions, clean energy can be reasonably purchased. If conditions permit, distributed energy systems can be self-built, such as rooftop photovoltaics (including BIPV) and energy storage. Consideration should be given to high-efficiency equipment with heat-electricity coupling capabilities, such as combined heat and power (CHP) or tri-generation (CCHP).

(2) Energy Distribution: The power distribution system should fully consider the systematic integration with smart buildings, having the ability to actively interact with HVAC (air conditioning, heat pumps, etc.), hot and cold water (electric hot water), elevators (safety), and lighting systems, strengthening the digital construction of energy distribution (monitoring basic parameters, energy data, flow data, etc.).

Popularize the use of smart valves, pay attention to the construction standards related to the load of hot and cold water and air conditioning heating pipes, improve overall efficiency, solve energy losses caused by hydraulic system imbalance, and build remote maintenance capabilities (parameter setting, data query, troubleshooting), equipment visualization, etc.

(3) Energy Use: Improve the building's passive energy-saving capabilities, adopt advanced design concepts, make better use of the cold, heat, light, and even rainwater in the natural environment, and minimize the building's own energy consumption needs. Actively save energy and reduce consumption through control measures, incorporating more and more equipment and systems in the building, such as lighting, air conditioning, and HVAC, into the scope of refined management and operation. Use the specific space usage needs of workstations, meeting rooms, and shopping malls as the basis for energy supply and distribution. Refined management makes the demand more accurate. Replace energy-saving equipment and facilities, such as replacing LED lights, windows with better sealing, strengthening exterior wall insulation, and updating shading facilities; using more energy-efficient energy equipment, using digital control technology to optimize system operation logic, such as variable air volume systems, optimizing system-connected air conditioning fans, using ground source, water source, and air source heat pumps to replace traditional air conditioners.

What are the entry points for carbon reduction in logistics parks?

The biggest adjustment is to balance the requirements for efficiency and cost in transportation logistics with the overall low-carbon needs of the park. The entry points are as follows: (1) Energy Supply: Based on the specific needs and construction costs of the park, purchase green electricity; consider building combined heat and power (CCHP) and other equipment with higher comprehensive energy efficiency; make full use of rooftop and other site conditions to build distributed energy equipment such as rooftop photovoltaics; establish related energy storage equipment for electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles/equipment to improve the utilization rate of tiered energy. (2) Energy Distribution: In terms of power distribution, for parks with a large number of charging piles, establish a corresponding charging management system to stabilize the overall energy consumption of the park, and can also try new applications such as V2G. For large-span warehousing spaces, optimize the transmission efficiency of HVAC pipelines and upgrade the warehousing system through intelligent collaboration. By using methods such as three-dimensional warehousing and unmanned warehousing, reduce energy consumption such as lighting, increase space utilization rate, and reduce the overall carbon emissions of the park. (3) Energy Use: Increase the substitution of electric/hydrogen vehicles and new energy equipment for fossil fuel vehicles to improve the overall automation and intelligence of the park, such as three-dimensional warehousing systems, which can significantly improve the utilization rate of land and warehouse space. Combined with corresponding intelligent sorting systems and robots, an unmanned or low-staff warehousing management system can be achieved. The higher the degree of automation, the lower the requirements for environmental comfort, reducing energy consumption for lighting and HVAC; multiple parks and upstream and downstream parks form a logistics system, optimizing and improving the efficiency of the entire logistics process through systematic data integration to increase unit energy output.

Upper Level of Zero-Carbon Park Construction: Soft Capabilities

First, to achieve the park's intelligent and "double carbon" goals, advanced management and operation concepts are the foundation of everything. Local governments and relevant management enterprises should actively cooperate with various organizations, enterprises, and experts in the field to create a scientific, objective, and proactive management philosophy. Secondly, in the intelligent zero-carbon construction process of the park, according to the "double carbon" policy and relevant market factors, the relevant governments and enterprises responsible for the construction and management of the park need to determine their goals based on their specific business forms and current basic conditions and make phased construction plans that meet the needs of the park to avoid "campaign-style" carbon reduction. In the short term, the park should first understand its current emissions and construction situation, clarify the emission baseline, and clarify the sources and types of park emissions. Then, a reasonable target and path should be formulated based on the baseline, and a long-term and feasible plan that has a relatively small impact on business and economic development should be formulated based on its own endowments and market environment. In the medium to long term, the basic goals and paths should be kept consistent, but they should be continuously adjusted and iterated based on the actual situation, and promoted layer by layer in terms of policy, strategy, operation, technology, and organization. In the planning process, it is possible to actively interact and cooperate with professional organizations and institutions in the market, learn from advanced domestic and international experiences, learn from each other's strengths, and strive to find the best solutions in terms of feasibility, advancement, and economy. For example, energy system planning. Since the energy system is the main link for achieving carbon emission reduction in the park, specialized planning for the construction of the energy system can avoid inefficient investment and waste of time. In the planning, using technical means such as "digital twins" and digital simulation can more accurately complete the power grid planning, distributed equipment and related equipment selection, construction scale, and investment return simulation for the park. Finally, energy saving and carbon reduction is a systematic project, and every detail of daily management and operation is the key to affecting the overall effect. In terms of optimizing management and operation processes, it is a project of meticulous cultivation over time. Based on a thorough understanding of the business, combined with advanced concepts, gradually optimize the overall management process, reduce unnecessary actions, and thus reduce carbon emissions.

Lower Level of Zero-Carbon Park Construction: Hardware Conditions

First, Energy Management

Combined with scientific energy system construction planning, efficient energy management is also a guarantee for the healthy operation of the park. By adopting advanced management concepts, combined with effective management tools, and optimizing and iterating management processes, the park's operation will gradually achieve its predetermined carbon reduction goals and achieve its intelligent and low-carbon park construction tasks as soon as possible.

Second, Distributed Energy

The selection and construction of new energy and distributed energy are also important components of comprehensive energy management. From mature wind and solar equipment and systems to rapidly developing energy storage, electric vehicles, and various new energy types, selecting appropriate equipment and technological routes can help the park further achieve its carbon reduction goals.

Third, Microgrid Management Platform

A microgrid management scheme integrating distributed energy and energy storage effectively optimizes both main grid power supply and self-power supply, reducing energy costs. Meanwhile, the microgrid's island operation mode ensures the independence of power users. In the current context of fluctuating energy demand and a growing share of new energy, microgrid technology, which can improve the flexibility, reliability, and new energy penetration rate of local grids, is also a key technology for energy saving and carbon reduction. From passively accepting energy consumption instructions to actively carrying out regional regulation based on the situation of the main grid and load, it can help operators better coordinate and manage the regional energy system and better connect with the future-oriented two-way grid concept and financial systems such as electricity/carbon trading.

Fourth, the comprehensive digital capabilities of the park

Comprehensive digital capabilities are reflected in the ability of various systems to interact and couple with each other, such as the coupling of electricity and heat, the linkage between subsystems such as security and fire protection, and the automatic adjustment of in-building systems based on the specific use of human flow and space.

Fifth, precise carbon management capabilities

Carbon neutrality must be based on the accurate calculation of corporate/park carbon emissions according to relevant standards and regulations. Various carbon emission data must meet the principles of measurability, reportability, and verifiability. Therefore, building an energy (carbon) management system with complete data transparency and granularity, and the park's comprehensive digital platform built upon it, will provide fundamental support for the park's intelligent and low-carbon development.

Sixth, zero-carbon buildings

After achieving excellence in the above areas, the standards for zero-carbon buildings should be met. Low-carbon design concepts should be implemented in the construction and renovation of buildings, the use of low-carbon building materials should be popularized, the recycling and reuse of construction waste should be strengthened, and low-carbon hot and cold water systems should be designed, along with the introduction of distributed energy. The goal of zero-carbon buildings can then be achieved by supplementing the purchase of green electricity.

In addition to advanced concepts, practical tools are also key to process optimization. For example, in carbon emission investigations, sufficient raw data acquisition and computing capabilities are required to visually present the entire park's carbon emissions as a basis for optimization decisions and verification of various improvement effects. Beyond data presentation, carbon emission reduction also requires support from various mature or developing equipment and systems, such as the various intelligent power distribution, building, and warehousing facilities mentioned earlier. Using these tools allows for closed-loop decision-making and implementation, thus forming a basic iterative form of optimization and improvement.

What are the core challenges in building a zero-carbon park?The challenges of low-carbon construction in parks mainly focus on achieving goals using feasible and cost-effective methods while meeting relevant energy consumption needs. In addition to the construction of distributed new energy, the automation and intelligence of power distribution and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning equipment, and the construction of a collaborative system among them, and the replacement of high-efficiency equipment, establishing long-term refined management and operation capabilities is also a major difficulty in achieving energy consumption control. Concepts guide planning and design, planning and design guide the construction of facilities and systems, and comprehensive governance capabilities and infrastructure conditions determine the effectiveness of zero-carbon construction in the park. Having clear construction goals and implementation paths for the park's intelligent and zero-carbon construction in the top-level planning and design phase is a necessary condition for achieving the "dual carbon" goals. At the same time, the park's continuous management and operation capabilities and the park's low-carbon and intelligent infrastructure capabilities are sufficient conditions for achieving the "dual carbon" goals.