Research on simulation teaching of carbon emission flow calculation in power systems under low-carbon transition context

Conventional carbon emission flow (CEF) calculation methods for power systems face challenges regarding unfair network loss allocation and difficulty in quantifying renewable energy's carbon reduction contributions. Existing studies often allocate network losses entirely to the load side or neglect the actual carbon reduction effects of renewable energy, leading to inequitable carbon emission responsibility distribution. To address these issues, this study proposes a simulation-based teaching method for CEF calculation grounded in power decomposition.

To overcome these limitations, the proposed method decomposes the actual power network into a basic power network and a power deviation network. Virtual nodes are introduced into transmission branches to distribute network losses equally between the generation side and the load side. We treat renewable energy units as negative-valued loads to quantify their carbon reduction contributions by calculating the difference in injected carbon flow rates. Finally, an IEEE 57-node system compares carbon flow rate differences under four allocation modes and simulates the impact of real power fluctuations on actual carbon flows.

Experimental results demonstrate that: 1) Under the bidirectional allocation mode, branch carbon flow rates fall between those of generator-side allocation and load-side allocation, validating the rationality of shared responsibility between generation and load sides. 2) When renewable energy unit G2 is treated as a negative load, its carbon reduction contribution increases from 66.49 t/h in the basic power network to 92.74 t/h in the power deviation network. This accurately reflects the impact of renewable power variability on carbon emission reduction within the system.

The proposed power decomposition-based CEF calculation method provides a fair and precise carbon emission measurement tool for power system low-carbon transitions. The teaching framework successfully integrates theoretical knowledge with simulation experiments, enhancing students' understanding of CEF-related theories while cultivating their low-carbon awareness and research literacy.