Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 2928: Prediction and Analysis of the Relationship between Energy Mix Structure and Electric Vehicles Holdings Based on Carbon Emission Reduction Constraint: A Case in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, China (Sustainability)

In response to air pollution problems caused by carbon emissions, electric vehicles are widely promoted in China. Since thermal power generation is the main form of power generation, the large-scale development of electric vehicles is equivalent to replacing oil with coal, which will accordingly result in carbon emissions increasing if the scale of electric vehicles exceeds a certain limit. A relationship model between regional energy mix structure and electric vehicles holdings under the constraint of carbon emission reduction is established to perform a quantitative analysis of the limitation mechanism. In order to measure the scale of the future electric vehicle market under the constraint of carbon emissions reduction, a method called Extreme Learning Machine optimized by Improved Particle Swarm Optimization (IPSO-ELM) with higher precision than Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is proposed to predict the power structure and the trend of electric vehicle development in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region from 2019–2030. The calculation results show that the maximum number of electric vehicles must not exceed 19,340,000 and 26,867,171 based on emissions reduction aims and also the predicted energy mix structure in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in 2020 and 2030. At this time, the ratio of electric vehicles to traditional car ownership is 75.6% and 78.3%. The proportion of clean energy generation should reach 0.314 and 0.323 to match a complete replacement of traditional fuel vehicles for electric vehicles. A substantial increase in clean energy generation is needed so that the large-scale promotion of electric vehicles can still achieve the goal of carbon reduction. Therefore, this article will be helpful for policy-making on electric vehicle development scale and energy mix structure in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.