Experiencing rapid growth over the past decade, the renewable energy industry in China has become key engine of the country’s economy. With the development of the Green Electricity Certificate (GEC), China’s energy landscape has been given another boost.
This article highlights six trends that are shaping the renewables landscape in China.
1. Wind Power
In recent years, China’s wind power equipment technology has made significant progress, and the cumulative installed capacity of wind power has continued to rise, which has become an important force in the development of global wind power. It is particularly noteworthy that China’s offshore wind power is developing rapidly and is expected to become an important growth pole for the wind power industry in the future.
2. Solar Photovoltaic
In recent years, China’s solar photovoltaic installed capacity, power generation capacity and the proportion of solar power generation in the total electricity consumption of the society have increased. Driven by multiple factors such as technological progress, cost reduction and policy support, some research institutions predict that photovoltaic power generation is expected to become the world’s largest installed power source.
3. Pumped Storage
Pumped storage power stations are the most reliable, economical, long-life cycle and mature energy storage methods in the power system. With the gradual replacement of imported products by domestic variable speed units and intelligent control systems, pumped storage is being given an important role as a “new power system stabiliser”.
4. New Energy Storage Systems
Last year, the installed capacity of China’s new energy storage has exceeded the installed capacity of pumped storage. This year, “new energy storage” is listed as an advanced manufacturing cluster. With the continuous emergence of new technologies, energy storage also plays a key role in ensuring the stability of power supply in data centers, smart data centres and other fields.
5. Ultra-High-Voltage (UHV) Transmission
China’s energy resources and power load demand are inversely distributed. With its significant advantages such as large transmission capacity, long distance, high efficiency and low loss, a UHV power grid plays a vital role in the optimal allocation of energy resources, and has become a key pillar of advancing China’s energy transformation and building a new power system.
6. Diversity in New Energy Power Operations
The rapid development of supporting technologies such as smart grid and energy storage has provided strong support for the stable supply and efficient utilisation of electricity. With the continuous expansion of China’s green power market, new energy power operations have also begun to provide distributed generation, microgrids and other power supply methods to meet the increasingly diversified electricity demand.
