Power plan to spark green energy transition

Editor's note: China aims to establish a clean, low-carbon, secure and efficient new energy system by 2030, according to a plan released recently. China Central Television spoke to Tian Lei, a researcher at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission, and Wang Peng, a professor at the North China Electric Power University, on the future of new energy development. Below are excerpts of the interview. The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

The shift to clean energy has two major implications. First, renewable energy will move from a supporting role and become the primary driver of the energy system.

Second, this transformation will drive technological upgrades in the power system, reshaping its operational models and overall structure. The expansion of renewable energy will also spur the growth of electric vehicles and emerging technologies.

Achieving these goals and sustaining the rapid growth of renewable energy will require strengthening the energy storage capacity through coordinated efforts on both the supply and demand sides.

On the supply side, developing new energy storage technologies and pumped-storage hydropower is essential to provide rapid balancing capacity during peak demand periods. At the same time, greater emphasis will be placed on hydrogen storage by converting surplus renewable electricity into green hydrogen, enabling long-duration energy storage.

On the demand side, the focus will be on enhancing the flexibility of electricity users by aggregating adjustable loads from households, businesses and factories so they can help in peakload regulation.

Future energy investment will focus on three broad areas: ensuring energy security, advancing the green transition and fostering new growth drivers. The plan calls for coordinated national deployment, discourages homogeneous local investment, strengthens market regulation and addresses disorderly competition, including below-cost pricing and mandatory project bundling.

At the same time, the development of a unified national electricity market will align power generation projects more closely with electricity demand and grid absorption capacity.

The plan also aims to enhance energy self-sufficiency in eastern China, while recognizing that the overall pattern of transmitting electricity, natural gas and coal from the western to eastern regions will remain unchanged.

Long-distance energy transmission inevitably involves electricity losses and requires extensive infrastructure for transporting coal. From the perspective of resource allocation, using more energy where it is produced in western China would significantly improve efficiency. However, this would also require the gradual relocation of industries to western regions.

There is a strong demand for computing resources in the more developed eastern regions of China, while abundant energy resources are concentrated in the west, making western China a natural location for large-scale computing centers. This requires close coordination between computing resources in the eastern and western regions, as well as a more efficient nationwide energy allocation.