At the end of April 2025, Song Hongkun, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, announced at a press conference of the State Council Information Office that as of that month, China's installed renewable energy power generation capacity had reached 2.017 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 58%; Among them, the total installed capacity of wind power, photovoltaic and nuclear power reached 1.53 billion kilowatts, surpassing the 1.451 billion kilowatts of thermal power for the first time. This milestone change means that China's energy structure is taking a substantial step forward from high-carbon to low-carbon transformation, and will also have a far-reaching impact on the global energy map.
Ⅰ The technological leap and policy drive behind the jump in installed data
In the first quarter of 2025, China's new installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic power will reach 74.33 million kilowatts, and the cumulative installed capacity will rise to 1.482 billion kilowatts, exceeding the total installed capacity of thermal power of 1.451 billion kilowatts for the first time. Among them, the installed capacity of wind power is 536 million kilowatts, and the installed photovoltaic capacity is 946 million kilowatts.
Behind this set of data, technological progress has contributed a lot:
* In terms of wind power, China has exceeded the independent manufacturing capacity of 10MW offshore wind turbines and onshore 7MW large-capacity wind turbines, which not only improves the utilization rate of wind energy, but also reduces the cost per kilowatt. Manufacturers such as CRRC Wind Power, Goldwind Technology, and Envision Energy are actively deploying deep-sea wind power projects, forming a whole industrial chain from wind turbine manufacturing, intelligent operation and maintenance to floating platforms.
* In terms of photovoltaics, Chinese companies are leading the world in next-generation cell technologies such as PERC, TOPCon, HJT, and perovskites. By the end of 2024, the efficiency of heterojunction cells released by China Energy Group and Tongwei has exceeded 26.3%, setting a global record. At the same time, the cost of modules continues to drop below 0.8 yuan/W, promoting the large-scale popularization of distributed PV in residential areas, industrial parks, agricultural facilities and other scenarios.
Strong support is also provided at the policy level. Since the "14th Five-Year Plan", the state has successively issued a series of top-level designs such as the "Double Carbon" Action Plan and the Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Establishment and Improvement of a Green, Low-Carbon and Circular Development Economic System, with policy tools such as financial subsidies, tax reductions and exemptions, and green credit. Guide the acceleration of the inflow of social capital into the new energy field.
Figure: China's installed capacity of wind, solar and nuclear power surpassed thermal power for the first time, and a new energy pattern has been accelerated
Ⅱ Energy security and green and low-carbon goals are driven by dual drives
For a long time, China's energy supply structure has been dominated by fossil energy, and thermal power once accounted for more than 60% of the power structure. Although thermal power has the advantages of peak regulation and frequency regulation, it has a high degree of dependence on foreign countries, strong carbon emissions, and heavy pollution burden, which have become the key factors restricting the high-quality development of energy.
The collective jump in the installed capacity of wind power, photovoltaic and nuclear power is reshaping this pattern:
* From the perspective of energy security: the characteristics of "local development and local consumption" of renewable energy will help improve energy self-sufficiency, reduce dependence on overseas oil and gas imports, and enhance the autonomy, controllability and resilience of the power system.
* From the perspective of green development: wind power and photovoltaic power have zero emissions in the process of power generation, and nuclear power is also a low-carbon energy source. According to the data of the National Energy Administration, the total power generation of wind power and photovoltaic power in the first quarter of 2025 will reach 536.4 billion kWh, a year-on-year increase of 26.1%, accounting for 22.5% of the total electricity consumption of the whole society, an increase of 4.3 percentage points over the same period of the previous year, and effectively driving the proportion of non-fossil energy power generation to 39.8%.
It is worth noting that since the growth rate of electricity consumption in the first quarter was only 2.5%, the new power generation of wind and solar power generation of 111 billion kWh far exceeded the total increase in electricity consumption (58.2 billion kWh), indicating that renewable energy not only played a major role in the "increase", but even began to play in the "stock" to play a substitution role.
Ⅲ Power system reform and industrial chain coordinated upgrading
Large-scale access to power grids such as wind power, photovoltaics, and nuclear power has promoted the transformation of China's power system to flexible dispatching, high proportion of new energy adaptation, and digital management.
1. Energy storage and regulation capacity building is urgent
The intermittent and fluctuating nature of wind and solar power requires the grid to have peak peak capability. At present, China is accelerating the construction of flexible resources such as pumped storage (with a capacity of more than 50 million kilowatts already in operation) and new electrochemical energy storage (about 25 million kilowatts will be added in 2024) to improve the stability of the system. Pilot the new mechanism of "new energy + energy storage + green certificate trading" in many places and explore a market-oriented consumption model.
2. Smart grids and digital systems have become key supports
Leading enterprises such as China Southern Power Grid and State Grid actively promote new power system demonstration projects, deploy advanced technologies such as flexible direct transmission, intelligent substation, and virtual power plants, and build a clean energy system with multi-energy complementarity and integration of source, grid, load and storage. It is estimated that by 2030, the investment in digital smart grid will exceed 2 trillion yuan.
3. New impetus for the collaborative upgrading of the industrial chain
The jump in the installed capacity of renewable energy has directly driven the rapid growth of polysilicon, inverters, energy storage batteries, wind power and other subdivisions. For example, LONGi Green Energy, Sungrow, CATL, Goldwind and other companies all occupy leading positions in the global market share. At the same time, the overseas market demand is strong, and China's new energy equipment exports are growing rapidly, which boosts enterprises to accelerate the strategic layout of "going out".
Ⅳ Practical challenges and sustainable paths
Although China has achieved the surpassing of new energy installed capacity to thermal power, it still faces many practical problems:
* Limited consumption of new energy: There is still a phenomenon of "curtailment of wind and solar energy" in some areas. In 2024, the curtailment rate of wind power and PV in Northwest China will reach 5.8% and 4.2%, which is an improvement compared with previous years, but it still needs to be further solved through the collaborative optimization of source, grid, load and storage.
* LCOE pressure remains: Some wind and solar projects in remote areas face high O&M costs and long payback cycles. The solution needs to rely on more efficient energy storage technology, intelligent operation and maintenance platform, and power market-oriented reform.
* Lack of talent and innovation: There are still "bottlenecks" in key areas such as high-end energy storage, new battery materials, and intelligent scheduling, and it is necessary to accelerate the construction of an integrated mechanism for production, education and research to attract more high-end technical talents to enter the new energy industry.
5. Looking ahead to 2030: China's global lead in renewable energy
According to the National Climate Change Plan (2024-2030), by 2030, the total installed capacity of wind and solar power generation in China will exceed 1.2 billion kilowatts, and the proportion of non-fossil energy in primary energy consumption will increase to about 25%. This is not only a concrete implementation of the goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality", but also means that China will continue to play a leading role in the global energy transition.
The collective surpassing of the installed capacity of wind power, photovoltaic and nuclear power in 2025 is not only a quantitative "exceeding", but also symbolizes an all-round leap in the quality, structure and governance mode of China's energy system. In the next stage, China's energy industry will move from a "quantitative leap" to a "qualitative leap", and enter a new stage of green, safe, efficient and sustainable development.
Conclusion
The installed capacity of wind power, photovoltaic and nuclear power surpassed thermal power for the first time, which is a turning point in China's energy history, marking that China has entered a new era dominated by clean energy. This is not only a farewell to the traditional high-carbon pathway, but also an important declaration of firm progress towards a green future. In the future, with the deepening of technology, policy coordination, and the improvement of market mechanisms, China's new energy industry will continue to contribute to the "China Plan" in the global energy restructuring.
