China will need to install around 10,000 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar capacity to reach carbon neutrality by 2060.
China will need to install around 10,000 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar capacity to reach carbon neutrality by 2060.
China will need to install around 10,000 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, according to new research.
This huge energy transition – with the technologies currently standing at 1,408GW – can make a “decisive contribution” to the country’s climate efforts and bring big economic rewards, the China Energy Transformation Outlook 2024 (CETO24) shows.
The report was produced by our research team at the Energy Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research – a “national high-end thinktank” of China’s top planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
The outlook looks at two pathways to meeting China’s “dual-carbon” climate goals and its wider aims for economic and social development.
In the first pathway, a challenging geopolitical environment constrains international cooperation.
The second assumes international climate cooperation continues despite broader geopolitical tensions.
We find that, under both scenarios, China’s energy system can achieve net-zero carbon emissions before 2060, paving the way to make Chinese society as a whole carbon neutral before 2060.
However, the outlook shows that meeting these policy goals will not be possible unless China improves its energy efficiency, sustains its electrification efforts and develops a power system built around “intelligent” grids that are predominantly supplied with electricity from solar and wind.
For comparison, a quick search says China put up 357 GW of wind and solar in 2024, totaling 1.4 thousand GW. Unless that data is wrong or my napkin math has a factor of 10 error, if they keep up that pace, they should reach it. Though considering the amount of investment they're putting on those industries along with electric vehicles, how wind and solar output vary, and the fact we don't exactly have a lot of time, would be nice to reach it earlier.
Assuming their pace neither increases nor decreases:
35 years to 2060
357 GW per year
1400 GW at start
This gives us 35 * 357 + 1400 = 13895 GW in 2060
Your math is good. My initial math was off so I ran the numbers. Good to know, and more places need to do it.
Solar saw the biggest leap, with a record-breaking 45.2% increase (+277 GW), achieving 887 GW overall. Wind power also saw solid growth, climbing 18% (+80 GW) to almost 521 GW.
China’s renewable energy sector experienced a stellar year in 2024, with the total installed capacity of wind and solar power surpassing 1.4 billion kilowatts, further reinforcing the country’s role as a global leader in renewable energy development.
China has the opportunity to build an economy that degrows from consumption patterns that assume a far lower level of industrialization.
It's sad that in their state capitalist philosophy of centralizing power over the means of production, they are still building a lot of inefficient consumerist infrastructure. Without that, the target green capacity could be a lot lower and much easier to achieve.
It is very impressive though that they could hit carbon neutrality only 10 years after the nations that outsourced their carbon-spewing industries to them while staying state capitalist. They're definitely doing a better job than the US, though the EU is probably doing better still.