Push for coalbed methane fired up
Tang Dengjie, secretary of the Communist Party of China Shanxi Provincial Committee, emphasized at a recently held industry forum that the region's ongoing green pivot does not entail abandoning its traditional industrial foundation.
Instead, Shanxi is leveraging its natural resource endowments to push coal from basic extraction toward high-value, clean and efficient utilization, he said during the forum last week.
By coupling core technological breakthroughs with industrial innovation, and aligning government guidance with market forces, the province aims to reinforce its role as a premier national energy stronghold supporting China's broader clean energy ambitions, Tang said.
To translate its growing green power surplus into industrial competitiveness, Shanxi is pursuing nine energy technology innovation pathways to bridge the "last-mile" gap between laboratory breakthroughs and industrial assembly lines.
The province is fostering high-end manufacturing in photovoltaics, wind turbines, energy storage, and coalbed methane machinery, while steering modern coal chemicals toward sophisticated, low-carbon applications.
Thirteen provincial-level green power parks and multiple pilot zero-carbon industrial parks are being built, supplying affordable, clean electricity to emerging sectors such as advanced semiconductor materials, new-energy metals and battery-swapping heavy-duty trucks.
To ensure grid stability, the province is deploying next-generation coal power upgrades to support source-grid-load-storage coordination within a flexible, intelligent modern power system. Shanxi targets expanding the regulation capacity of provincial virtual power plants to 3 GW by 2030, while systematically developing pumped-storage hydropower and novel energy storage assets.
National energy authorities highlighted Shanxi's progress as an exemplary showcase of China's broader decarbonization drive.
Song Hongkun, deputy head of the National Energy Administration, noted at the forum that nationwide renewable energy capacity has reached 2.48 billion kilowatts, surpassing 60 percent of total installed capacity, with solar power generation historically exceeding coal.
Song praised Shanxi for blazing a trail as the country's first energy revolution pilot zone, highlighting its leadership in smart mine automation, repurposing mining subsidence land for renewable bases and expanding green electricity trading.
To reconcile decarbonization with grid reliability, Song called for the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into energy networks, alongside accelerated rollouts of vehicle-to-grid systems, smart microgrids, and frontier clean technologies.
