Towards clean and low carbon: An overview of China's energy development achievements



The scale of development and utilization of renewable energy ranks first in the world, and the transformation of energy consumption structure to clean and low-carbon is accelerating. Since the founding of New China, China's energy industry has achieved rapid development from a hundred waste to develop, from "coal-based" to "clean and diversified" development, and has made historic achievements.

China's energy supply security capability has been strengthening continuously

Energy is an important basis for national economic and social development. Since the founding of New China, China has gradually built a relatively complete energy industry system. After the reform and opening up, to meet the needs of rapid economic and social development, China has promoted the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development of energy, and has become the world's largest energy production consumer and the country with the fastest improvement in energy efficiency. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China's energy development has entered a new era.

After years of development, China's energy supply security capacity has been continuously enhanced, and basically formed a multi-wheel driven energy production system of coal, oil, gas, electricity, nuclear, new energy and renewable energy.

According to the white paper "China's Energy Development in the New Era" released at the end of last year, China's total primary energy production reached 3.97 billion tons of standard coal in 2019, making it the world's largest energy producer. The scale of renewable energy development and utilization has expanded rapidly, and the accumulated installed capacity of hydropower, wind power and photovoltaic power generation ranks first in the world.

"Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China has made remarkable achievements in energy development. The energy supply and reserve system has been continuously improved, the security guarantee capacity has been continuously enhanced, and the overall energy supply and demand have maintained a balance." Said Zhang Jianhua, director of the National Energy Administration.

Data from the National Energy Administration show that in 2020, China's comprehensive energy production capacity will reach 4.1 billion tons of standard coal, crude oil production will reach 195 million tons, natural gas production will reach 192.5 billion cubic meters, the total installed power generation capacity will reach 2.2 billion kilowatts, the total mileage of oil and gas pipelines will reach 175,000 kilometers, and all county-level administrative regions will be connected to the large power grid. Economic and social development and people's energy needs are effectively guaranteed.

China's energy production and consumption structure has been continuously optimized

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China has built the world's largest clean coal power supply system; Since the "13th Five-Year Plan", the increment of non-fossil energy consumption in China has accounted for 40% of the increment of primary energy consumption, an increase of 14 percentage points compared with the increment during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period.

In recent years, with the continuous development of the total energy and the accelerated reform of energy use, China's energy production and consumption structure has been optimized. The transformation of traditional ways of using energy has been accelerated, and the pace of clean and low-carbon transformation has gradually accelerated. The level of coal processing and transformation has been greatly improved, the quality of refined oil products has been upgraded and expanded at a faster pace, and the substitution of electric energy in key areas has achieved initial results.

Influenced by the characteristics of China's energy and resource endowments, coal accounted for more than 90% of the country's total energy consumption in the early days of the founding of New China. After years of unremitting efforts, China's energy production and consumption structure has been continuously optimized, and the proportion of coal in China's total energy consumption has generally declined.

Data show that in 2019, China's coal consumption accounted for 57.7% of the total energy consumption, 10.8 percentage points lower than in 2012; Clean energy consumption, including natural gas, hydropower, nuclear power and wind power, accounted for 23.4 percent of total energy consumption, 8.9 percentage points higher than in 2012. The green development of energy has played an important role in the reduction of carbon emission intensity, which in 2019 was 48.1% lower than that in 2005.

China's energy development has accelerated the transition to clean and low-carbon development

On June 7, the offshore booster station of Jiangsu Rudong Offshore Wind Power Project of State Power Investment was successfully powered, and the project construction entered a new stage. After the Rudong project is completed and put into operation, the offshore wind farm of Jiangsu Offshore Wind Power Company is expected to generate nearly 4.4 billion KWH of electricity per year, save about 1.46 million tons of standard coal per year, and correspondingly reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 3.23 million tons.

In recent years, energy companies and industries have entered the field of new energy, taking clean and low-carbon as one of the future development directions. The State Grid issued the "carbon peak, carbon neutral" action plan, proposed to vigorously develop clean energy, promote energy and power from high carbon to low carbon, from fossil energy to clean energy based transformation, in the energy supply side, to build a diversified clean energy supply system.

The sustainable development report released by CNOOC recently said that green and low-carbon has been established as one of its core development strategies, and put forward the vision of leapfrogging development from conventional oil and gas to unconventional oil and gas, and from traditional oil and gas to new energy. State power investment will increase investment in the field of green electric transportation; Petrochina has promoted its new energy business alongside its oil and gas business as the largest business segment.

China gives priority to non-fossil energy in energy development, and vigorously promotes low-carbon energy to replace high-carbon energy and renewable energy to replace fossil energy. We will adhere to the orientation of green development, vigorously promote the clean and efficient use of fossil energy, give priority to the development of renewable energy, develop nuclear power in a safe and orderly manner, and accelerate the increase of the share of non-fossil energy in energy supply.

The National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the "Energy production and consumption Revolution Strategy" clearly, by 2030, China's new energy demand will mainly rely on clean energy to meet.

"In the next step, we will formulate more positive new energy development goals, vigorously promote the large-scale, high-proportion, high-quality and market-oriented development of renewable energy in the new era, accelerate the implementation of renewable energy replacement actions, and strive to improve the absorption and storage capacity of new energy, and actively build a new power system with new energy as the main body." "Zhang Jianhua said.