China has unveiled its latest five-year energy sector plan, setting a target for non-fossil sources to account for half of its electricity generation by 2030, rising from a 42.3% target for 2025.
However, market analysts suggest these renewable energy targets are conservative given the sector’s recent rapid growth, indicating that actual deployment could outpace official goals.
The strategy dictates that wind and solar power alone will constitute 30% of China’s power generation by 2030, up from 22% in 2025. Yao Zhe, a policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, noted that power sector emissions might still rise between 2026 and 2030, especially as annual electricity consumption growth is expected to exceed 5%. Despite this, Yao confirmed the target remains aligned with China’s broader objective to peak carbon emissions by 2030.
Under the new framework, wind and solar are projected to exceed 50% of installed capacity by 2030, reaching 2,700 gigawatts (GW), up from 47% at the end of 2025. Yao cautioned that this capacity target implies a significant slowdown from the current pace of renewable deployment, which could impact investment confidence in a market that is already experiencing a cooling trend.
As the world’s largest builder of renewable energy and its biggest carbon emitter, China has established a binding goal to reduce power-sector carbon emissions intensity by more than 10% over the five-year period. Qi Qin, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, described this intensity target as modest. Qi calculated that if total power generation increases by 4% to 5% annually, carbon intensity would actually need to fall by roughly 17% to 23% by 2030 just to prevent total power-sector emissions from rising above 2025 levels.
The policy also outlines an expansion of non-pumped hydro energy storage to 300 GW by 2030, a substantial increase from the previous target of 180 GW by 2027. Furthermore, the nation aims for an annual renewable hydrogen output of 2 million metric tons by 2030, a massive leap from the 2025 target of 100,000 to 200,000 tons.
While the document reiterates the national objective for coal consumption to peak by 2030, it stops short of defining a specific limit. Looking further ahead, the plan flags “space-based power stations” as a future innovation priority, potentially linking the technology to powering China’s anticipated space-based data centres for artificial intelligence over the coming five years.
