Enhancing carbon neutrality through renewable energy and demand-side management

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 CO concentrations.The measured data indicated consistently low carbon dioxide concentrations and negative carbon flux values, with average concentrations of 464.87 ppm and mean CO flux of -0.0087 mg/ms, 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.