>China’s adoption of renewable energy continues to accelerate. In 2024, wind and solar electricity generation rose by 25% compared with the previous year. In the first half of 2025 it was 27% higher than in H1 2024 – enough, alongside other trends, to cut fossil fuel generation by 2% compared with H1 2024. In the 12 months to June 2025, wind and solar (2,073 TWh) generated more electricity than all other clean sources (nuclear, hydro and bioenergy) combined (1,936 TWh). Just four years ago, wind and solar generated half as much electricity as other clean sources combined.
>The renewables transformation is underpinned by world-leading investment in clean energy, energy storage and transmission grids. China is the biggest investor in clean energy worldwide, spending $625 billion USD in 2024 – 31% of the global total of $2,033bn. The volume of installed battery storage tripled in the three years to 2024. Grid investment rose to an all-time high in 2024 of 608 billion RMB ($85bn USD), up by 25% from 486 billion RMB ($68bn) in 2019.
>Beyond electricity, the transition is reshaping end-use sectors. Electricity is comfortably the biggest energy source in buildings, and in 2023 overtook coal to become the biggest energy source for industry. Oil-derived fuels still dominate in transport, but China’s rapidly-expanding electric vehicle fleet is progressively gaining ground. The share of electricity in final energy demand across the wider economy continues to grow, reaching 32% in 2023, out-pacing many mature economies.
>The clean energy transition is constraining China’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, reducing energy costs, stimulating growth and jobs and creating export markets. In 2024, investment and production in clean energy contributed 13.6 trillion RMB ($1.9 trillion) to the national economy – a sum equivalent to about one-tenth of China’s GDP, or the total GDP of Australia – and the sector is growing three times faster than the Chinese economy overall. The depth of buy-in within business is reflected in research, development and innovation: Chinese companies now account for about 75% of global patent applications in clean energy technology, up from just 5% in 2000.
>China is rapidly scaling up its energy storage capacity – outpacing the rest of the world. Since 2021, China’s total capacity has more than tripled, reaching over 135 GW by the end of 2024. While pumped hydro has grown steadily, the most dramatic growth has come from “new-type” storage technologies, particularly lithium-ion batteries. In 2024 alone, China commissioned a record 37 GW/91 GWh of battery storage – more than the combined additions of the United States (12 GW/37 GWh) and Europe (12 GW/21 GWh, about two-thirds behind the meter).
>China’s transition is advancing on the demand side, with electricity claiming a growing share of final energy use and displacing fossil fuel use. From 2015 to 2023, electricity’s share of final energy consumption grew by 1 percentage point per year to stand at 32% in 2023 – well above the US (24%) and OECD Europe (24%). Together with clean generation, rapid electrification is key to rewiring the economy for deep, long-term decarbonisation.
>Industrial sparks, electric wheels and heating power lead China’s electrification. In 2023, end-use electrification added 73 TWh of new electricity demand, directly replacing fossil-fuel consumption, according to the China Electricity Council (CEC). Industry led the way, replacing coal and other fossil fuels with electric kilns and boilers, adding 34 TWh. Transport followed, with rapid EV adoption and expanded subway and rail systems substituting 22 TWh for oil products. In buildings, roughly 12 TWh of electricity replaced fossil fuels, primarily by substituting loose coal heating in northern China with low-carbon technologies such as heat pumps and geothermal systems.
>Now, attention is turning to harder-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement and chemicals. Here, green hydrogen is gaining momentum. In 2024, the global renewable-based hydrogen sector added over 70,000 tonnes/year of production capacity, up 42% from the previous year. China accounted for more than 60% of this growth, lifting its renewable-based hydrogen production capacity to just over 125,000 tonnes/year – up from virtually zero just a few years ago.
>China’s accelerating shift to renewables is driving structural change in the power sector, with coal generation now nearing its peak. In 2024, clean electricity sources – led by wind and solar – met 84% of China’s new power demand, up sharply from just 16% during 1991-2000, 22% during 2001-2010, and 47% during 2011–2020.
>Reflecting this shift, the National Energy Administration (NEA) stated at the 2022 Two Sessions that new coal power projects solely for electricity generation would not be approved in principle, though “supportive units” of limited scale may still be built to ensure reliability. The 2022 Government Work Report called for repurposing coal power for grid flexibility and heating, facilitating renewable integration and displacing polluting loose coal. In 2024, this direction was reaffirmed with a mandate for all eligible coal units to undergo flexibility retrofits by 2027. However, recent coal permitting has still been sizable, but utilisation rates and dispatch rules will determine emissions trajectories.
>By 2024, more than 6,100 TWh of electricity – equivalent to 63% of total electricity consumption – was traded through market mechanisms. This marks an eightfold increase from 2015 and nearly a doubling of volume since 2020. Inter-provincial trading has grown particularly fast, reaching 23% of market-traded electricity in 2024. Nearly all provinces have launched pilot spot markets, and as of August 2025, spot markets in several pioneer provinces – including Shanxi, Shandong, Guangdong, Gansu, Western Inner Mongolia and Zhejiang – plus inter-provincial markets have achieved full commercial operation. Coverage is expanding but not yet nationwide; inter‑provincial alignment remains a work in progress.
>Spot trading is vital for integrating variable renewables, providing dynamic, real-time pricing and dispatch to manage fluctuations. Spot trading, alongside cross-regional exchange, is expected to expand rapidly in the coming years, driven by sustained policy action. By the end of 2025, China aims to complete the initial framework of the unified national electricity market. By 2029, the plan is to fully establish the unified market, ensuring consistent market mechanisms and fair regulatory oversight nationwide. This will mark the culmination of a 15-year process, stimulated by myriad policy steps on a coordinated nationwide basis, enabling Chinese consumers and businesses to gain full benefit from the growth of wind and solar generation.
>In electric vehicles, the long-standing rule of thumb has been that battery packs at $100/kWh achieve sticker price parity with Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles. By July 2025, Chinese battery pack prices had plummeted to around $60/kWh. For consumers this means cheaper cars: each $10 per kWh decline in pack prices shaves about $500 off average-sized car production costs. In 2024, two-thirds of electric cars sold in China were cheaper than their ICE equivalents.
>But scale matters more than share. The International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Roadmap, one of the most widely-used pathways to limiting global warming to 1.5C, requires 761 GW of solar capacity to be added globally per year in 2030. Already today, Chinese factories alone can theoretically supply that, and China’s projected solar manufacturing capacity in 2030 (1,255 GW per year) is 65% higher than the IEA Roadmap deployment figure. Batteries tell a similar story: in 2024, Chinese battery manufacturing capacity was about 2,500 GWh, over double last year’s global demand. By 2030, China is gearing up for 6,300 GWh per year of battery manufacturing capacity.
>If ‘made in China’ captured the country’s role in the 2010s, ‘invented in China’ increasingly captures its role today. China has become the energy transition’s science laboratory as well as its factory. China’s share of patent applications globally in clean energy technologies has risen from around 5% in 2000 to around 75% in 2022 – including 90% in solar and wind, 85% in energy storage, and more than 70% in batteries and electromobility, based on IRENA’s patent database. Equally striking is China’s corporate Research and Development (R&D) spending in the energy sector, which has sailed past the US and Europe. In 2023, Chinese corporations invested ten times more in R&D in the electricity sector than their US counterparts.
>China’s solar exports tripled in five years, reaching 242 GW in 2024, with around half going to emerging markets. In many countries, this is already adding materially to their capacity to generate electricity.
> In 2024, China exported $61 billion USD worth of batteries, with a quarter of this going to emerging markets, where they both help to integrate higher levels of variable solar generation into the electricity system and build domestic automotive industries. One of the most significant trends in the auto trade is that over the past decade, China has evolved from being a net car importer into the world’s largest exporter.
>A growing share of these car exports consists of EVs, up from 7% in 2020 to 41% in the first five months of 2025. In 2024, emerging markets overtook the European Union as China’s largest EV destination. Exports to emerging markets surged from $0.5 billion in 2020 to $16.5 billion in 2024.
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Some highlights from the report:
>China’s adoption of renewable energy continues to accelerate. In 2024, wind and solar electricity generation rose by 25% compared with the previous year. In the first half of 2025 it was 27% higher than in H1 2024 – enough, alongside other trends, to cut fossil fuel generation by 2% compared with H1 2024. In the 12 months to June 2025, wind and solar (2,073 TWh) generated more electricity than all other clean sources (nuclear, hydro and bioenergy) combined (1,936 TWh). Just four years ago, wind and solar generated half as much electricity as other clean sources combined.
>The renewables transformation is underpinned by world-leading investment in clean energy, energy storage and transmission grids. China is the biggest investor in clean energy worldwide, spending $625 billion USD in 2024 – 31% of the global total of $2,033bn. The volume of installed battery storage tripled in the three years to 2024. Grid investment rose to an all-time high in 2024 of 608 billion RMB ($85bn USD), up by 25% from 486 billion RMB ($68bn) in 2019.
>Beyond electricity, the transition is reshaping end-use sectors. Electricity is comfortably the biggest energy source in buildings, and in 2023 overtook coal to become the biggest energy source for industry. Oil-derived fuels still dominate in transport, but China’s rapidly-expanding electric vehicle fleet is progressively gaining ground. The share of electricity in final energy demand across the wider economy continues to grow, reaching 32% in 2023, out-pacing many mature economies.
>The clean energy transition is constraining China’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, reducing energy costs, stimulating growth and jobs and creating export markets. In 2024, investment and production in clean energy contributed 13.6 trillion RMB ($1.9 trillion) to the national economy – a sum equivalent to about one-tenth of China’s GDP, or the total GDP of Australia – and the sector is growing three times faster than the Chinese economy overall. The depth of buy-in within business is reflected in research, development and innovation: Chinese companies now account for about 75% of global patent applications in clean energy technology, up from just 5% in 2000.
>China is rapidly scaling up its energy storage capacity – outpacing the rest of the world. Since 2021, China’s total capacity has more than tripled, reaching over 135 GW by the end of 2024. While pumped hydro has grown steadily, the most dramatic growth has come from “new-type” storage technologies, particularly lithium-ion batteries. In 2024 alone, China commissioned a record 37 GW/91 GWh of battery storage – more than the combined additions of the United States (12 GW/37 GWh) and Europe (12 GW/21 GWh, about two-thirds behind the meter).
>China’s transition is advancing on the demand side, with electricity claiming a growing share of final energy use and displacing fossil fuel use. From 2015 to 2023, electricity’s share of final energy consumption grew by 1 percentage point per year to stand at 32% in 2023 – well above the US (24%) and OECD Europe (24%). Together with clean generation, rapid electrification is key to rewiring the economy for deep, long-term decarbonisation.
>Industrial sparks, electric wheels and heating power lead China’s electrification. In 2023, end-use electrification added 73 TWh of new electricity demand, directly replacing fossil-fuel consumption, according to the China Electricity Council (CEC). Industry led the way, replacing coal and other fossil fuels with electric kilns and boilers, adding 34 TWh. Transport followed, with rapid EV adoption and expanded subway and rail systems substituting 22 TWh for oil products. In buildings, roughly 12 TWh of electricity replaced fossil fuels, primarily by substituting loose coal heating in northern China with low-carbon technologies such as heat pumps and geothermal systems.
>Now, attention is turning to harder-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement and chemicals. Here, green hydrogen is gaining momentum. In 2024, the global renewable-based hydrogen sector added over 70,000 tonnes/year of production capacity, up 42% from the previous year. China accounted for more than 60% of this growth, lifting its renewable-based hydrogen production capacity to just over 125,000 tonnes/year – up from virtually zero just a few years ago.
>China’s accelerating shift to renewables is driving structural change in the power sector, with coal generation now nearing its peak. In 2024, clean electricity sources – led by wind and solar – met 84% of China’s new power demand, up sharply from just 16% during 1991-2000, 22% during 2001-2010, and 47% during 2011–2020.
>Reflecting this shift, the National Energy Administration (NEA) stated at the 2022 Two Sessions that new coal power projects solely for electricity generation would not be approved in principle, though “supportive units” of limited scale may still be built to ensure reliability. The 2022 Government Work Report called for repurposing coal power for grid flexibility and heating, facilitating renewable integration and displacing polluting loose coal. In 2024, this direction was reaffirmed with a mandate for all eligible coal units to undergo flexibility retrofits by 2027. However, recent coal permitting has still been sizable, but utilisation rates and dispatch rules will determine emissions trajectories.
>By 2024, more than 6,100 TWh of electricity – equivalent to 63% of total electricity consumption – was traded through market mechanisms. This marks an eightfold increase from 2015 and nearly a doubling of volume since 2020. Inter-provincial trading has grown particularly fast, reaching 23% of market-traded electricity in 2024. Nearly all provinces have launched pilot spot markets, and as of August 2025, spot markets in several pioneer provinces – including Shanxi, Shandong, Guangdong, Gansu, Western Inner Mongolia and Zhejiang – plus inter-provincial markets have achieved full commercial operation. Coverage is expanding but not yet nationwide; inter‑provincial alignment remains a work in progress.
>Spot trading is vital for integrating variable renewables, providing dynamic, real-time pricing and dispatch to manage fluctuations. Spot trading, alongside cross-regional exchange, is expected to expand rapidly in the coming years, driven by sustained policy action. By the end of 2025, China aims to complete the initial framework of the unified national electricity market. By 2029, the plan is to fully establish the unified market, ensuring consistent market mechanisms and fair regulatory oversight nationwide. This will mark the culmination of a 15-year process, stimulated by myriad policy steps on a coordinated nationwide basis, enabling Chinese consumers and businesses to gain full benefit from the growth of wind and solar generation.
>In electric vehicles, the long-standing rule of thumb has been that battery packs at $100/kWh achieve sticker price parity with Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles. By July 2025, Chinese battery pack prices had plummeted to around $60/kWh. For consumers this means cheaper cars: each $10 per kWh decline in pack prices shaves about $500 off average-sized car production costs. In 2024, two-thirds of electric cars sold in China were cheaper than their ICE equivalents.
>But scale matters more than share. The International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Roadmap, one of the most widely-used pathways to limiting global warming to 1.5C, requires 761 GW of solar capacity to be added globally per year in 2030. Already today, Chinese factories alone can theoretically supply that, and China’s projected solar manufacturing capacity in 2030 (1,255 GW per year) is 65% higher than the IEA Roadmap deployment figure. Batteries tell a similar story: in 2024, Chinese battery manufacturing capacity was about 2,500 GWh, over double last year’s global demand. By 2030, China is gearing up for 6,300 GWh per year of battery manufacturing capacity.
>If ‘made in China’ captured the country’s role in the 2010s, ‘invented in China’ increasingly captures its role today. China has become the energy transition’s science laboratory as well as its factory. China’s share of patent applications globally in clean energy technologies has risen from around 5% in 2000 to around 75% in 2022 – including 90% in solar and wind, 85% in energy storage, and more than 70% in batteries and electromobility, based on IRENA’s patent database. Equally striking is China’s corporate Research and Development (R&D) spending in the energy sector, which has sailed past the US and Europe. In 2023, Chinese corporations invested ten times more in R&D in the electricity sector than their US counterparts.
>China’s solar exports tripled in five years, reaching 242 GW in 2024, with around half going to emerging markets. In many countries, this is already adding materially to their capacity to generate electricity.
> In 2024, China exported $61 billion USD worth of batteries, with a quarter of this going to emerging markets, where they both help to integrate higher levels of variable solar generation into the electricity system and build domestic automotive industries. One of the most significant trends in the auto trade is that over the past decade, China has evolved from being a net car importer into the world’s largest exporter.
>A growing share of these car exports consists of EVs, up from 7% in 2020 to 41% in the first five months of 2025. In 2024, emerging markets overtook the European Union as China’s largest EV destination. Exports to emerging markets surged from $0.5 billion in 2020 to $16.5 billion in 2024.
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