十五五规划：清洁能源如何重塑中国经济版图

In March 2026, during the Two Sessions, China officially approved the 15th Five-Year Plan.

This blueprint, spanning from 2026 to 2030, has sent an unprecedentedly clear signal in the energy sector: renewable energy is no longer a supporting player, but the undisputed protagonist.

Let's start with a few key figures.

The plan stipulates that by 2030, non-fossil energy must account for 25 percent of primary energy consumption.

Offshore wind power capacity is to exceed 100 gigawatts, and nuclear power capacity is to reach 110 gigawatts.

By 2035, the combined installed capacity of wind and solar power is to reach 3,600 gigawatts.

What does this mean?

A simple calculation shows that from now until then, China needs to add approximately 200 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity every year.

This pace is virtually unimaginable for any other country in the world.

But what truly warrants attention is not these figures themselves, but the fundamental shift in thinking behind this plan.

Over the past decade, China's strategy in the new energy sector can be summarized in four characters: "go big, go fast."

Solar panels have blanketed the Gobi Desert in the northwest, and wind turbines stand along coastlines stretching from Inner Mongolia to Guangdong.

The results were remarkable — the previously set target of 1,200 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity, originally planned for completion by 2030, was achieved ahead of schedule in 2024.

This execution capability has garnered worldwide attention.

However, the problems arising from this rapid scaling have also become increasingly pronounced.

Curtailment of wind and solar power — meaning clean electricity that is generated but cannot be absorbed by the grid, wasted entirely — was at one point quite severe in certain regions.

The northwest has abundant sunshine and strong winds, but electricity demand is concentrated along the eastern coast.

There exists an enormous spatial mismatch between power supply and demand.

You can think of it as a paradox: the more resource-rich an area is, the more likely it is to face the predicament of "having electricity but being unable to transmit it."

The 15th Five-Year Plan attempts to address this problem at its root.

Its core logic has shifted from the singular pursuit of installed capacity to systemic integration.

What does systemic integration mean?

It means no longer viewing each energy form in isolation, but rather planning wind, solar, hydroelectric, nuclear, energy storage, and transmission networks as an organic whole.

Specifically, the plan has laid out several clear pathways.

First, strengthening cross-provincial and cross-regional power transmission corridors.

From clean energy-rich regions such as Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, and Tibet, new ultra-high voltage transmission corridors will be constructed to deliver electricity directly to load centers in the east and central regions.

This is not a new concept, but the 15th Five-Year Plan has elevated it to an unprecedented strategic priority.

Second, building a multi-energy complementary regulation system.

What is the greatest weakness of renewable energy?

Intermittency.

When the sun sets, solar panels stop generating electricity; when the wind dies, turbines cease to turn.

What's the solution?

The plan's answer is: use hydroelectric and nuclear power as baseload, and use pumped-storage hydropower stations as "giant batteries" for peak shaving and valley filling.

China's hydroelectric resources, especially the large reservoirs in the southwest, are naturally equipped with flexible regulation capabilities.

Nuclear power provides stable baseload electricity.

The principle of pumped-storage is straightforward — when there is surplus electricity, water is pumped from downstream to upstream reservoirs for storage; when electricity is needed, the water is released to generate power.

This technology is mature, high-capacity, and long-lasting, making it one of the most reliable large-scale energy storage methods available today.

Third, and this is the most exciting part — the plan explicitly promotes the development of green hydrogen, green ammonia, concentrated solar power, and geothermal energy.

Each of these technologies is worthy of an in-depth discussion on its own.

Green hydrogen, as the name suggests, is hydrogen produced by electrolyzing water using clean electricity.

Its significance lies in the fact that hydrogen can be stored, transported, and used as an industrial feedstock.

Steel smelting, chemical production, heavy-duty transportation — these industries that have traditionally been extremely dependent on fossil fuels could see revolutionary emissions reduction potential if green hydrogen were substituted.

Green ammonia, which is ammonia synthesized from green hydrogen, is not only an important fertilizer feedstock but is also regarded as a highly promising zero-carbon fuel, particularly suited for ocean-going shipping.

Concentrated solar power, also known as concentrating solar thermal power, is entirely different from the photovoltaic panels we are familiar with.

It uses mirrors to focus sunlight onto a single point, generating extreme heat, and then uses steam to drive turbines for electricity generation.

What is its greatest advantage?

Built-in energy storage.

Molten salt can store thermal energy and continue generating electricity even when there is no sunlight.

This effectively resolves the intermittency problem of photovoltaic power.

China's Qinghai, Gansu, and Xinjiang enjoy exceptionally favorable solar irradiation conditions, making them ideal locations for developing concentrated solar power.

Geothermal energy is yet another clean energy source that has been chronically underestimated.

The heat contained within the Earth's interior is virtually inexhaustible.

China's Yangbajing geothermal power station in Tibet has been in operation since the 1970s, yet for a long time, the scale of geothermal development has remained modest.

The 15th Five-Year Plan has brought geothermal energy back into focus, demonstrating the foresight of policymakers in pursuing energy diversification.

From a more macroscopic perspective, this plan conveys a profound signal: clean electricity is not merely an energy issue, but a matter of industrial strategy.

The plan explicitly states that clean electricity will become the primary source of future power growth and the core driving force behind industrial restructuring.

In other words, China does not merely intend to replace coal and natural gas with clean energy, but aims to reconstruct the entire industrial system around clean energy.

What does this mean?

Consider this: when the cost of electricity is sufficiently low and the supply sufficiently stable, many technological pathways that were previously economically unviable become feasible.

Aluminum smelting powered by clean electricity would see dramatic reductions in carbon emissions.

Data centers powered by clean electricity would alleviate the energy anxieties associated with artificial intelligence.

Electric vehicles charged with clean electricity would constitute genuinely zero-emission transportation.

Every link in the industrial chain would be redefined.

Of course, the challenges are equally immense.

Adding 200 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity annually places unprecedented pressure on supply chains.

Polysilicon, lithium batteries, rare earth permanent magnet materials, copper — the supply-demand balance of these critical raw materials will directly impact the pace of the plan's implementation.

Furthermore, the construction of ultra-high voltage transmission lines involves extensive land acquisition, environmental assessments, and cross-provincial coordination, none of which can be accomplished overnight.

As for nuclear power expansion, although the technology is increasingly mature, public acceptance and site selection remain perennially sensitive issues.

There is also a dimension that is easily overlooked: electricity market reform.

No matter how much clean power capacity is installed, without rational pricing mechanisms to guide the production and consumption of electricity, system efficiency cannot be truly improved.

China's electricity market reform has been advancing for years, yet interprovincial barriers, cross-subsidization, and conflicts between planned and market-based electricity quotas — these deep-seated institutional issues persist.

Whether the 15th Five-Year Plan can achieve breakthroughs in these areas will, to a significant extent, determine the quality of the energy transition.

Viewed in an international context, China's energy plan is unparalleled in both scale and ambition.

The EU's Green Deal and the United States' Inflation Reduction Act are both driving their respective energy transitions, yet no single country or economic bloc has ever produced such a systematic and detailed roadmap.

This concerns not only China's own carbon peaking and carbon neutrality targets, but will also profoundly influence the structure of global energy markets, the cost curves of clean technologies, and even the balance of geopolitical power.

From the early achievement of 1,200 gigawatts to the new target of 3,600 gigawatts, from sheer scaling to refined systemic integration, the 15th Five-Year Plan marks China's energy transition entering an entirely new phase.

This is no longer a debate about "whether to transition," but a practice of "how to transition faster, more steadily, and more deeply."

Over the next five years, we will witness how this blueprint materializes step by step — and its impact will extend far beyond the energy sector itself.