On July 26, the municipal industry bureau announced that a recently released plan, the "Nanjing 15th Five-Year Smart Grid Industry Development Plan", sets a clear target. By 2030, the scale of the city's smart grid industry aims to reach one trillion yuan, creating a world-class advanced manufacturing cluster for smart grids.
The smart grid is one of Nanjing's most competitive industrial sectors. In 2021, supported by leading enterprises like NARI Group, the smart grid industry was successfully selected as one of the first national advanced manufacturing clusters. By 2025, the industry's scale had surpassed 500 billion yuan, making it the city's second-largest industrial cluster and a core engine driving high-quality urban development.
Why aim for a trillion-yuan industry and a world-class cluster?
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the city will target the creation of a trillion-yuan smart grid industry and a world-class advanced manufacturing cluster. This is intended to accelerate the improvement of the industry's scale, capacity, and overall competitiveness. To scientifically guide industrial development, the city has formulated and issued the plan, which defines the direction and approach for the industry.
The plan specifies that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Nanjing's smart grid industry will focus on two major technology trends. The first is the flexibility and reconfigurability brought by power electronics. The second is the intelligence and integration brought by AI and digital twins. The industry will concentrate on four key areas: Generation (promoting clean transformation of energy supply), Transmission (enhancing digital and intelligent empowerment of energy transmission), Consumption (leading integrated and interactive energy consumption), and Storage (promoting full-chain coordination of energy storage). Eight major tasks will be implemented, including optimizing the industrial layout, strengthening the leadership of key enterprises, reinforcing and extending the industrial chain, accumulating development momentum, driving innovation, expanding application scenarios, deepening international cooperation, and promoting green transformation.
By 2030, the city's smart grid industry scale is expected to reach one trillion yuan. The plan aims to create a "five batches" of achievements. This includes cultivating a batch of globally influential chain-leading enterprises and hidden champions. Specifically, the goal is to develop one hundred-billion-yuan chain-leading enterprise, ten ten-billion-yuan leading enterprises, 50 national-level specialized "Little Giant" enterprises, and over 20 manufacturing champion enterprises. Another goal is to form a batch of international standards and norms that lead industry development. This involves adding over 500 new national, industry, and group standards related to new power systems, establishing a national-level highland for technological standards innovation. The plan also aims to break through a batch of critical "bottleneck" technologies and key equipment related to industrial security. Major breakthroughs are expected in areas like power electronics, information communication, and high-end materials, with the domestic substitution rate for key equipment rising to over 95%. Furthermore, the city plans to build a batch of benchmark application scenarios and demonstration projects that can be replicated and promoted. This includes creating over 10 key demonstration projects, such as integrated source-grid-load-storage systems, zero-carbon industrial parks, regional microgrids, and virtual power plants, as well as establishing comprehensive "solar-storage-charging-swapping" smart energy demonstration stations covering major functional areas. Lastly, the target is to construct a batch of high-level industry-academia-research platforms and public service systems, including national-level manufacturing innovation centers and enterprise technology centers, while setting up concept validation centers and pilot testing platforms to build a public service network covering the entire industry chain.
How will the industry be structured and spatially organized?
The plan clearly states that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the city's smart grid industry will jointly build a pattern of industrial agglomeration and development. On one hand, it will consolidate and enhance advantageous industries such as secondary power equipment and new energy key equipment. It will also cultivate and grow emerging industries like solid-state transformers and new energy storage, while strategically positioning future industries like controlled nuclear fusion and integrated hydrogen energy. Saturated production capacity will be guided to exit or upgrade in an orderly manner, creating a tiered and coordinated industrial structure. On the other hand, a new development pattern of "one valley, three zones, and two poles" will be established. The "one valley" refers to the China (Nanjing) Smart Grid Valley in Jiangning District, which will serve as the core area for high-end smart grid equipment and the origin of original technologies. The "three zones" include Qixia District, which will develop ultra-high voltage key equipment, power plant intelligence, and primary-secondary integrated equipment; the Jiangbei New Area, which will focus on grid automation, power plant and industrial automation, expanding into energy storage, photovoltaic, and hydrogen industries; and Gulou District, which will center on power trading, "AI plus" energy, and power services, positioning itself as a core hub for Jiangsu's green energy industry. The "two poles" involve Lishui District, which will develop EV charging and discharging equipment, power batteries, energy storage and hydrogen equipment, and smart power transformation equipment, and Liuhe District, which will focus on wind power, energy storage equipment and systems, new energy batteries, and lithium battery recycling.
What support mechanisms will be in place?
To promote industrial integration and coordinated development, the city will establish a smart grid industry alliance. This will create a supply-demand matching platform for the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, encouraging leading enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises, and universities to share innovation resources and market channels. This will accelerate the formation of a new pattern of integrated development for large, medium, and small enterprises. The reporter noted that to build the smart grid into a world-class advanced manufacturing cluster, the city will organize a coordinated overseas expansion group for the industrial chain. This group will participate in international market competition as a consortium, promoting the "going global" of products and services. At the same time, the city will attract global high-quality resources by hosting a series of events. This will create a "Nanjing brand" with global influence in its advantageous areas, such as power control and protection, and ultra-high voltage direct current transmission.
A responsible official from the municipal industry bureau stated that to accelerate the implementation of the plan's tasks, the city will build a collaborative platform for "government, industry, academia, research, finance, application, and services." This platform will promote the efficient agglomeration of industrial factors such as technology, talent, capital, and application scenarios. Furthermore, this year, Nanjing will host the first high-standard Nanjing Smart Grid Industry Ecosystem Conference. The conference will showcase the results of industrial development, deepen project, technology, capital, and application scenario matching, and further enhance the industry influence and brand recognition of Nanjing's smart grid industry.