On January 28, 2022, the National Energy Administration (NEA) of China held its first-quarter online press conference, during which it announced the operational performance of renewable energy integration into the national grid for 2021, along with updates on energy regulation hotline cases and progress in the development of smart coal mines.
According to the NEA, 2021 marked another year of significant progress in China’s renewable energy sector, reflecting the government’s firm commitment to advancing President Xi Jinping’s ecological civilization vision and the nation’s “Four Reforms, One Cooperation” energy security strategy. Anchored by the goals of peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality, the energy authority enhanced top-level industry planning and accelerated the construction of major renewable energy projects, including large-scale wind and solar bases. These efforts aimed to increase the supply of clean energy and strengthen public energy security while promoting high-quality growth within the renewable energy industry, laying a strong foundation for the 14th Five-Year Plan period.
By the end of 2021, China’s total installed renewable energy capacity surpassed 1 billion kilowatts. Both wind and solar power installations individually exceeded 300 million kilowatts, while offshore wind capacity alone rose to rank first globally. In total, China added 134 million kilowatts of new renewable capacity during the year, accounting for 76.1 percent of all new power capacity nationwide. This comprised 23.49 million kilowatts of newly installed hydropower capacity, 47.57 million kilowatts of wind power, 54.88 million kilowatts of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity, and 8.08 million kilowatts of biomass power. By the close of 2021, the nation’s total renewable energy installed capacity reached approximately 1.063 billion kilowatts, representing 44.8 percent of China’s overall power generation capacity. Within this, hydropower capacity stood at 391 million kilowatts, wind power at 328 million kilowatts, solar PV at 306 million kilowatts, and biomass power at 37.98 million kilowatts.
In terms of power generation, renewable electricity output continued to grow steadily. Nationwide, renewable energy generated 2.48 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2021, supplying 29.8 percent of total electricity consumption. Among this, hydropower contributed 1,340.1 billion kilowatt-hours, reflecting a slight decline of 1.1 percent year-on-year. Wind power generation reached 652.6 billion kilowatt-hours, achieving a strong year-on-year increase of 40.5 percent, while solar PV power generation rose by 25.1 percent to 325.9 billion kilowatt-hours. Biomass power generation also saw substantial growth, increasing by 23.6 percent to 163.7 billion kilowatt-hours.
The utilization efficiency of renewable energy sources remained consistently high throughout 2021. The utilization rate of hydropower resources in major river basins reached approximately 97.9 percent, a 1.5 percentage point improvement over the previous year. The total amount of discarded hydropower fell notably to around 17.5 billion kilowatt-hours, a reduction of 14.9 billion kilowatt-hours from the prior year. Wind power facilities nationwide maintained an average utilization rate of 96.9 percent, an increase of 0.4 percentage points year-on-year. Particularly significant improvements were observed in provinces such as Hunan, where the utilization rate rose to 99 percent, and in Gansu and Xinjiang, where utilization rates increased to 95.9 percent and 92.7 percent respectively, representing marked year-on-year gains.
Wind power capacity expansion in 2021 remained vigorous, with 47.57 million kilowatts of new grid-connected installations, the second-highest annual increase since the start of the 13th Five-Year Plan. This included 30.67 million kilowatts of onshore wind power and a notable 16.90 million kilowatts of offshore wind power. The spatial distribution of newly added capacity was more balanced, with 61 percent of the new installations located in central, eastern, and southern regions, and 39 percent in the “Three North” regions (Northeast, North, and Northwest China), reflecting an increasingly optimized national wind power development layout. By the end of the year, total wind power capacity reached 328 million kilowatts, with 302 million kilowatts installed onshore and 26.39 million kilowatts offshore.
In terms of operational performance, wind power generation achieved a record-breaking 652.6 billion kilowatt-hours, representing a 40.5 percent increase compared with 2020. The average utilization hours for wind power generation nationwide stood at 2,246 hours, with higher figures recorded in regions such as Fujian at 2,836 hours, Western Inner Mongolia at 2,626 hours, and Yunnan at 2,618 hours.
China’s renewable energy sector thus maintained robust momentum in 2021, with considerable improvements in installed capacity, generation output, and resource utilization efficiency. These developments underline the nation’s accelerating transition toward a cleaner, low-carbon energy system in line with its medium- and long-term climate and sustainability commitments.
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