Technicians check solar panels in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province. (Photo by YAO FENG/FOR CHINA DAILY)
BEIJING: China has made historic breakthroughs in developing green and low-carbon energy over the past decade as part of its pursuit of a sustainable future, said a white paper released on Thursday.
As China continuously pushes forward reforms in its energy production and consumption methods and improves its energy supply capacity, clean energy development in China has entered the fast lane, says the white paper titled “China’s Energy Transition.”
In 2023, clean energy will account for 26.4 percent of the country’s total energy consumption, compared to 15.5 percent in 2013. At the same time, the share of coal in energy consumption has fallen by 12.1 percentage points over the past decade, the white paper says.
Electricity generated from clean energy accounted for more than half of the increase in the country’s total electricity consumption over the past decade, representing a growing share of green energy in the country’s energy mix.
In 2023, the share of clean energy in the country’s total electricity generation was 39.7 percent, about 15 percentage points more than in 2013.
The country’s installed clean energy capacity reached 1,700 gigawatts last year, or 58.2 percent of the country’s total installed power generation capacity, the white paper said.
The white paper also found that China’s energy consumption per unit of GDP fell significantly as it tried to combine energy transition with environmental protection, and will fall by more than 26 percent between 2013 and 2023.
