China has officially released its development plan for renewable energy during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), outlining ambitious targets for the sector's expansion and its role in the national energy transition.

According to the plan jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, the total consumption of renewable energy by 2030 is targeted to reach approximately 1.8 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent.

In terms of power generation, total installed capacity from renewables is expected to hit around 3.5 billion kilowatts (kW), with annual electricity output reaching roughly 6 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh). Specifically, the combined installed capacity of wind and solar power is projected to exceed 2.8 billion kW, accounting for over 50% of the total installed capacity. Their annual power generation is set to surpass 4 trillion kWh, representing 30% of total electricity output.

For non-electric applications, the total scale of renewable energy use is planned to grow 1.5 times compared to 2025 levels, equivalent to about 150 million tonnes of standard coal.

The plan also sets reliability targets, aiming for the average credible output of national wind and solar power (including energy storage) to reach 8% by 2030, with wind at around 11% and solar at 6%. The share of wind and solar power during peak evening hours in summer and winter is targeted to exceed 20%, an increase of about 10 percentage points. Furthermore, over 300 million kW of new reliable peak-shaving generation capacity from renewables is to be added during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Accelerating Reliable Replacement Capability

The plan emphasizes the need to accelerate the enhancement of renewable energy's reliable replacement capability for conventional power.

It stipulates that by 2030, the credible output of newly built centralized wind and solar power stations should, in principle, be no less than 10%, with projects meeting certain conditions encouraged to exceed 20%.

To achieve this, the plan promotes the integrated multi-energy development of new energy sources, including co-locating wind and solar power and coordinating the operation of solar thermal with biomass. Pumped storage hydropower is identified as a key regulation tool, with explicit encouragement for new business models like "pumped storage + new energy" and "pumped storage + nuclear power."

On the demand side, the plan calls for guiding flexible loads to shift to periods of high renewable energy generation through price signals, and actively promoting resource aggregation models such as vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interaction and virtual power plants.

Establishing Market and Green Certificate Systems

Regarding the power market, the plan aims to construct a market system adaptable to the full integration of new energy sources, supporting eligible projects to participate in joint bidding and encouraging large-scale renewable bases to participate in power market trading as a whole. It also calls for improving inter-provincial and inter-regional power trading systems to continuously increase the proportion of clean energy transmitted across regions.

In the realm of green certificates and green electricity, the plan proposes perfecting a nationally unified green certificate issuance and trading system, advancing medium-to-long-term green certificate trading and multi-time-scale green power trading mechanisms. It seeks to establish a sound price formation mechanism for green certificates and publish a green certificate price index, while also promoting the linkage between electricity, carbon, and certificates.

Focus on R&D and Offshore Wind Expansion

The plan highlights the need to strengthen research and development in advanced materials, core components, key equipment, and control systems for renewable energy.

This includes developing equipment such as variable-speed, ultra-high head, and ultra-high pump-turbine ratio pumped storage units, as well as giant impulse turbine units for the kilometer-head segment. It also involves research on high-efficiency, reliable wind power generation equipment, breakthroughs in manufacturing key components like high-reliability, low-cost blades, ultra-high towers, and new floating foundations, and exploring novel wind energy utilization technologies like high-altitude wind power.

For solar, the plan calls for accelerating research on the preparation and industrial production technologies for high-efficiency photovoltaic cells like perovskite tandem cells, studying space-based solar power generation technologies, and advancing key technology verification. Research and application of key technologies for flexible off-grid production of green hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol are also emphasized, along with frontier technology R&D in biomass, solar thermal, geothermal, and ocean energy.

Offshore Wind Targets

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the scale of newly started offshore wind power projects nationwide is targeted at around 100 million kW, with cumulative installed capacity expected to exceed 100 million kW by 2030.

The plan calls for continuously accelerating the construction of near-shore offshore wind projects, expediting the development of provincial projects that have received official replies, conducting a new round of provincial offshore wind plan revisions and assessments, and optimizing cable routing paths for near-shore projects.

It also emphasizes vigorously promoting the layout and construction of deep-sea offshore wind power bases, establishing a project database for such bases, coordinating factors like sea area use, and promoting the standardized and orderly construction of base projects in batches. The plan advocates for coordinated planning and construction of source-grid projects and promotes the intensive sharing of submarine transmission corridors and landing points.

The full text of the "Renewable Energy Development 15th Five-Year Plan" has been published by the relevant authorities.