China is going to become the king of renewables (much faster than expected)

beijingwalker · Mar 14, 2023

China is going to become the king of renewables (much faster than expected)

03/14/2023 | 10:10am EDT

According to an analysis by investment bank Goldman Sachs, China will install three times as many wind turbines and solar panels by 2030 as currently planned.

Much of the world is trying to move away from fossil fuels to become carbon neutral. With the falling cost of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries alike, that transition is gaining in recent years.

In the news: According to Goldman Sachs, China will have 3,300 gigawatts (GW) of solar and wind power capacity by 2030.

By comparison, that's as much as 1,100 Doel nuclear power plants combined (before Doel 3 closed). It is also nearly three times as much as China currently plans (1,200GW) to install by 2030. Interestingly, Europe also plans to install 1,236GW of renewables
Goldman Sachs calculated that if China succeeds, it will need some 520 GW of energy storage. 410 GW will come from batteries, the rest from reservoir power plants. That effectively means that China will need to seventy-fold its battery storage this decade to meet demand.
Goldman Sachs' predictions are very similar to those of research group BloombergNEF. In an published late last November, the group estimated that China needs to install some 3,345 GW of solar and wind by 2030.

Chinese energy transition

The numbers: China's energy transition is quite ambitious.

According to Goldman Sachs' analysis, China will need to invest $8 trillion in the coming decades to move away from fossil fuels. Eventually, according to current targets, the country should become carbon neutral by 2060.
However, BloombergNEF believes that this goal will be achieved faster. According to the research firm, it could happen as early as 2050.
Either way, that will be a huge task. China is currently the world's largest importer of fossil fuels. Last year it even added . Coal is one of the most polluting sources of energy.
At the same time, it did add 125 GW of solar and wind power. Production increased 29.2 percent and 16.6 percent, respectively, last year compared to 2021. Within a few years, then, the share of renewable sources is expected to overtake that of fossil fuels.