The Electricity Import Dilemma: Hong Kong’s Path to Net-Zero in the Greater Bay Area

This contribution discusses what has become a central question in energy economics for both Hong Kong and the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA): how can one of the world’s most densely developed and renewable-resource-constrained cities decarbonise its electricity system? Hong Kong’s current response—an explicit strategy of importing 60–70% of its electricity from zero-emission sources on the mainland by 2035, primarily nuclear power—is pragmatic but raises profound concerns regarding energy security, governance, cost, and long-run credibility. This article examines the structural drivers of Hong Kong’s energy challenge, the economic logic and risks of the electricity import strategy, the constraints on local renewable deployment, and what the GBA regional context means for the transition. It argues that the import strategy is necessary but not sufficient: durable decarbonisation also requires deeper demand-side reform in buildings and transport, a credible regional carbon pricing architecture, and a more honest public reckoning with the trade-offs involved in outsourcing clean power generation to the mainland. The GBA, taken as a whole, offers one of the most instructive case studies of city-cluster energy transition in the world—and one that deserves far more attention from energy economists.