Advertisement
Opinion
How battery storage development can wean China off fossil fuels
As China’s green transition faces external and domestic hurdles, a focus on energy storage capacity will help Beijing meet climate targets
3-MIN READ3-MIN
6
Tim Daiss has been an energy markets and geopolitical journalist and analyst in the Asia-Pacific region for the past 15 years.
Criticism against China’s energy sector over its fossil fuels usage has lessened lately – and with good reason. The country leads the world in renewable energy development, with more to come. In 2023, China had installed an impressive 301 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy, led by wind, solar and hydropower.
Its 180GW of utility-scale solar and 159GW of wind power under construction last year was nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined, according to a Global Energy Monitor report. In May 2024, renewables accounted for 44 per cent of overall energy used for China’s electricity production. By 2030, that share could grow to nearly half of all power production.
China is also making gains in energy storage. Its capacity for new energy storage systems more than tripled in 2023 alone. The country is the world’s largest market for energy storage, followed by the US and Europe, according to a Carbon Brief article citing Bloomberg New Energy Finance. China has already surpassed its target of reaching 30GW of new energy storage types by 2025, two years earlier than planned.
Select Voice
Select Speed
1x
AI-generated voice