Carbon emissions are the major cause of the global warming; therefore, the exploration of carbon emissions reduction potential is of great significance to reduce carbon emissions. This paper explores the potential of carbon intensity reduction in Beijing in 2020. Based on factors including economic growth, resident population growth, energy structure adjustment, industrial structure adjustment and technical progress, the paper sets 48 development scenarios during the years 2015–2020. Then, the back propagation (BP) neural network optimized by improved particle swarm optimization algorithm (IPSO) is used to calculate the carbon emissions and carbon intensity reduction potential under various scenarios for 2016 and 2020. Finally, the contribution of different factors to carbon intensity reduction is compared. The results indicate that Beijing could more than fulfill the 40%–45% reduction target for carbon intensity in 2020 in all of the scenarios. Furthermore, energy structure adjustment, industrial structure adjustment and technical progress can drive the decline in carbon intensity. However, the increase in the resident population hinders the decline in carbon intensity, and there is no clear relationship between economy and carbon intensity. On the basis of these findings, this paper puts forward relevant policy recommendations.

China is launching a campaign to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. However, the vast majority of renewable energy needs to be converted into electricity before it can be supplied to consumers, therefore, the importance of power grid which is the transmission and distribution carrier of power will become more and more significant. Give that the developed countries have established a complete system of power grid, China can learn from their development experience of power grid to plan the development of power grid. In order to explore the experience of power grid development in developed countries, this paper fist combines the qualitative and quantitative analysis methods to summarize the development rule of power grid in developed countries based on the characteristics quantity of power grid development. Secondly, this paper makes clear the current development stage and the future development trend of China power grid according to the rule of power grid development in developed countries and the development characteristics of China power grid. Finally, some policy recommendations are provided to the future development of China power grid.