Each year the MIT Technology Review scours the globe for the best and brightest young innovators, pioneers, inventors and humanitarians; each spring, they unveil their curated “Innovators Under 35” (TR35) list of their honorees. Their TR35 China list acknowledges the work of China’s young visionaries.
This year, former Harvard-China Project fellow Shi Chen, Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Environment at Tsinghua University and Alumna (Visiting Fellow) and Collaborator, Harvard-China Project, was named to the TR35 China list for her work on advancing renewable energy research in China. See five of her papers conducted at or with the Harvard-China Project listed below, with HCP-affiliated co-authors in bold.
Shi Chen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Tsinghua University
PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) POWER, as the fastest-growing low-carbon energy, is expected to play an important role in achieving the global goals of net zero emissions and limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. In order to make PV power a benefit to the global population and drive low-carbon transitions, Shi Chen has been focusing on this field in recent years.
Given that the investment in energy infrastructure in the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ regions has been long locked in fossil energy and the prospects of developing PV power in such regions are uncertain, Shi Chen has created a technology for assessing the technological potential of PV power based on spatial big data, systematically analyzed the PV power potential in such regions and the prospects for regional cooperation, and presented solutions to getting rid of the traditional high-carbon paths in such regions.
In the face of the high-quality development demands of PV in China under China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, Shi Chen has extended the potential assessment system in depth from the technical dimension to the economic and grid dimensions, successfully established a comprehensive whole-chain assessment system of PV power, and mined the spatio-temporal evolution features of technical, economic, and grid integration potentials of combined solar PV and storage.
Facing the challenge of variability in the grid integration of PV with a high proportion of renewable energy in the new power system, Shi Chen has further developed an assessment system to analyze the reasons for spatio-temporal variability of PV power and revealed the co-benefits of air pollution control for PV power in China for the first time.
In future research, Shi Chen will further explore how to optimize the comprehensive benefits of renewable energy like PV, including but not limited to the climate, environment, poverty alleviation, and health benefits to provide decision makers with scientific development schemes.
Shi Chen's Harvard-China Project Publications
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Shi Chen, Xi Lu, Yufei Miao, Yu Deng, Chris P. Nielsen, Noah Elbot, Yuanchen Wang, Kathryn G. Logan, Michael B. McElroy, and Jiming Hao. 2019. “The potential of photovoltaics to power the Belt and Road Initiative.” Joule, 3, 8, 1895-1912. Publisher's Version and Abstract. Chen et al. is the cover article of this issue of Joule.
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Xi Lu, Shi Chen, Chris P. Nielsen, Chongyu Zhang, Jiacong Li, Xu He, Ye Wu, Shuxiao Wang, Feng Song, Chu Wei, Kebin He, Michael P. McElroy, and Jiming Hao. 2021. “Combined solar power and storage as cost-competitive and grid-compatible supply for China’s future carbon-neutral electricity system.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118, 42, 2103471118. Publisher's Version and Abstract. Lu et al. is the cover article of this October issue of PNAS.
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Shi Chen, Xi Lu, Chris P. Nielsen, Guannan Geng, Michael B. McElroy, Shuxiao Wang, and Jiming Hao. 2022. “Improved air quality in China can enhance solar power performance and accelerate carbon neutrality targets.” One Earth, 5, 5, 550-562. Publisher's Version and Abstract
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Tianguang Lu, Peter Sherman, Xinyu Chen, Shi Chen, Xi Lu, and Michael B. McElroy. 2020. “India’s potential for integrating solar and on- and offshore wind power into its energy system.” Nature Communications, 11, 4750. Publisher's Version and Abstract
- Shaojie Song, Haiyang Lin, Peter Sherman, Xi Yang, Shi Chen, Xi Lu, Tianguang Lu, Xinyu Chen, and Michael B. McElroy. 2022. “Deep decarbonization of the Indian economy: 2050 prospects for wind, solar, and green hydrogen.” iScience, 25, 6, 104399. Publisher's Version and Abstract