China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) have jointly released the "15th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development."
The plan outlines a key target for 2030: total renewable energy consumption is expected to reach approximately 1.8 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent (tce).
Key Power Generation Goals
By 2030, the total installed capacity for renewable power generation should reach around 3.5 billion kilowatts (kW), with annual power generation hitting about 6 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh). Specifically, the combined installed capacity for wind and solar power is targeted to exceed 2.8 billion kW, accounting for over 50% of the total power capacity. Their annual power generation is expected to surpass 4 trillion kWh, constituting 30% of total electricity output.
Non-Power Utilization Targets
The plan also sets a goal for non-power uses of renewable energy. By 2030, the total scale of non-power utilization is projected to grow 1.5 times compared to 2025 levels, equivalent to about 150 million tonnes of standard coal.
Fostering Advanced Productive Forces in Energy
To guide the renewable energy industry towards high-end and intelligent upgrades, thereby cultivating new quality productive forces in the energy sector, the plan focuses on technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and breakthroughs in market-oriented operations.
First, it emphasizes strengthening technological innovation. This includes enhancing the layout and development of academic disciplines related to new and renewable energy. Efforts will focus on achieving reliable substitution with renewables, promoting the research, development, and large-scale application of advanced equipment and technologies such as 100% green power transmission from major bases, grid-forming technologies, and multi-time-scale power forecasting. The plan also calls for breakthroughs in frontier technologies and high-end equipment, including giant impulse-type hydropower units for thousand-meter water head sections and space-based solar power generation. Continuous innovation and application in engineering technologies for large-scale "desert-gobi-wasteland" bases and deep-sea offshore wind power will be pursued, alongside accelerating the application of artificial intelligence to drive industrial iteration and upgrades.
Second, the plan aims to promote the upgrading of the entire industrial chain. Leveraging China's massive market scale and diverse application scenarios, it will continuously optimize resource allocation to foster high-end and intelligent industrial development. The focus will be on key technological equipment in the renewable energy sector, boosting the R&D and application of domestically produced equipment. Large-scale application of advanced technology and equipment will be increased in major renewable energy bases. The plan also seeks to cultivate an industrial chain for the recycling and reuse of decommissioned new energy equipment. Furthermore, it will improve the standards and certification systems for the renewable energy industry, accelerating the formulation of standards for system-friendly new energy power stations.
Third, the plan seeks to enhance market-oriented operational capabilities. This involves improving the supply of meteorological forecasts for new energy and the accuracy of power predictions, thereby strengthening the ability to fulfill power market trading contracts. Artificial intelligence and other technologies will be applied to enhance the intelligent decision-making capabilities of new energy participants in the electricity market. Support will be given for the integrated, centralized control, operation, and maintenance of regional new energy power station clusters to improve power market operational revenues. The plan also calls for accelerating the cultivation of professional new energy power generation operators.