China leads the global energy transition

Interviewed expert: Wang Zhen, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of the Energy Economic Research Institute of CNOOC Group

According to Reuters, China's National Development and Reform Commission, National Energy Administration and other 9 departments jointly issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development"
.
About 33% of the electricity generated by its grid is planned to come from renewable sources by 2025, up from 28.
8%
in 2020.

In the first four months of 2022, China's investment in solar projects tripled, giving China the potential to secure a record amount of clean energy capacity
, Bloomberg said.

Agence France-Presse said China is the world's largest producer of
renewable energy.
China has accelerated its investment in solar and wind energy projects to address domestic pollution
.
Beijing has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and
be carbon neutral by 2060.
China's latest goal is to double
its installed wind and solar capacity by 2025.

In recent years, China's leapfrog development of renewable energy represented by hydropower, wind energy, solar energy and biomass energy has achieved remarkable
results.
In terms of development scale, China's installed renewable energy capacity exceeded the 1 billion kilowatt mark, ranking first in the
world。 Among them, the installed capacity of hydropower, wind power, photovoltaic power generation and biomass power generation has ranked first
in the world for 17 consecutive years, 12 years, 7 years and 4 years, respectively.
At the technical level, China not only has the ability to independently design and manufacture million-kilowatt-class water turbines and the world's leading super-high dams and large underground caverns, but also has achieved rapid iteration of photovoltaic technology in just a few years, repeatedly refreshing the world record for
battery conversion efficiency.
In the industrial chain, China's wind power and other industries rely on their own "low-cost, high-tech" international competitive advantages, and gradually occupy the European high-end market, leading the development of global industries
.
China's photovoltaic module production has ranked first in the world for 15 consecutive years, and polysilicon production has ranked first
in the world for 11 consecutive years.

China's series of achievements in the field of renewable energy reflect China's great importance to vigorously developing renewable energy such as solar energy, wind energy, hydrogen energy and advanced ecological civilization concepts
.
In the face of the energy supply crisis brought about by geopolitical conflicts, some countries attach far more importance to energy security than energy transition, and the Chinese government fully realizes that there is no opposition and contradiction between "ensuring energy security" and "achieving the double carbon goal", more is the difference between short-term goals and long-term goals, and it is possible to achieve overall development
.
It is this understanding and recognition of renewable energy development with a more long-term perspective that prompts China to take both comprehensive and targeted measures to actively promote energy transformation
in accordance with the characteristics of different stages of renewable energy development.

In the initial stage of sustainable energy development, the state has played a central role
in three strong measures in fiscal and taxation finance, project construction and electricity consumption.
Thanks to a series of economic incentive policies such as fixed feed-in tariffs, tax incentives and reductions, preferential loans, many major national projects such as the wind power "wind riding plan" and "photovoltaic leader project", as well as a sound power consumption guarantee mechanism, China's renewable energy has now achieved remarkable achievements in quantity and quality, and has become an important force
in achieving the goal of carbon peak carbon neutrality.

Entering the window period of the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan, China fully recognizes that the development of renewable energy should be regarded as the core content of the country's energy transformation and an important way to cope with climate change, and the whole society has formed a broad consensus
on "accelerating the high proportion of renewable energy and high-quality development".
In terms of laws and regulations, China attaches importance to the establishment of a renewable energy management normative system, and the promulgation of the Renewable Energy Law marks the formation of a basic system
in terms of the total amount of renewable energy targets, compulsory grid access and full guaranteed purchases, and classified electricity prices.
In terms of strategic planning, as a supplement to the energy development plan, China has prepared and issued the "Renewable Energy Industry Development Plan" every year since 2000, forming an effective expected guidance and clear strategic objectives
.
In terms of standards and norms, the National Energy Administration, as the national competent authority for industry standardization in the energy field, has issued more than 660 standards in the field of renewable energy and established a relatively complete standard system
.

China's vigorous development of renewable energy is of great significance to itself and to the world
.
From the perspective of energy transformation, China, as the world's second largest economy and global manufacturing center, the sustained, healthy and rapid development of renewable energy such as wind power and photovoltaic power generation can not only completely change China's traditional energy structure dominated by fossil energy, but also accumulate rich experience in responding to global climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, making positive contributions to the world's construction of a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system, and solving the inclusive supply of modern clean energy in other countries.
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals provides an effective reference; From the perspective of energy security, China's vigorous development of renewable energy can effectively reduce its dependence on oil and gas consumption and imports on the one hand, reduce China's unpredictable price fluctuations in fossil fuels, and promote inclusive economic growth, job creation and poverty
reduction 。 On the other hand, affected by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, all countries in the world attach great importance to energy security issues, and have sought energy independence, and China's comparative advantage in renewable energy development will effectively promote world cooperation in renewable energy and energy efficiency equipment, propose affordable and sustainable energy accessible solutions for developing countries, and contribute to promoting the global process of climate change
.