The Chinese authorities have adopted a program for the development of renewable energy for the coming years. The document aims to gradually phase out fossil fuels and accelerate the low-carbon transformation of key industries. One of the main targets is the replacement of 30 million tons of coal through alternative sources and energy-efficient solutions.
The plan calls for the construction of one hundred industrial parks and several transport corridors with zero carbon emissions. This will become a testing ground for testing clean technologies in real conditions.
Particular attention was paid to the electric power industry. In regions with suitable conditions and high load control needs, pumped storage plants with a total capacity of 100 gigawatts will appear. Such objects work like huge batteries: they pump water into the upper reservoir when there is a lot of energy, and dump it during peak hours, generating current.
Large-scale solar and wind generation complexes will be deployed in desert areas. To deliver this energy to the densely populated eastern provinces, the capacity of power transmission lines from west to east will be increased to 420 gigawatts.
The head of the State Energy Administration of the People’s Republic of China, Wang Hongzhi, noted that during the 14th Five-Year Plan, the industry made a breakthrough. The share of renewable sources in the country’s total installed capacity has increased from 40 to about 60%. Annual increases in wind and solar capacity have consistently exceeded 100, 200 and 300 million kilowatts. The world energy industry has never seen such a pace.
China has created the largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system in the world. The country holds the leadership in the efficiency of photovoltaic conversion and the power of single offshore wind generators. It also takes first place in storage new type of energy.
The new plan secures China’s role as the main driver of the global energy transition. The scale of investment and the pace of capacity commissioning are already changing the structure of global demand for coal and gas. For international markets, this is a signal: the era of fossil fuels in the Middle Kingdom is coming to an end faster than expected.
Source: @Metals_Mining
Image: @Metals_Mining
