On August 29, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on the white paper "China's Energy Transition," at which Wan Jinsong, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, summarized the achievements of China's energy transition from five aspects.

At the meeting, a reporter asked: In the decade of the new era, China has advanced transformation and change in energy production, consumption, technology and institutions, and international cooperation. Please introduce the main achievements of China's energy transition and change.

Wan Jinsong pointed out that, first, China's energy transition has pushed clean energy development onto a fast track. By the end of 2023, installed non-fossil energy power generation capacity exceeded 1.5 billion kilowatts, historically surpassing thermal power. Clean energy generation was about 3.8 trillion kilowatt-hours, accounting for nearly 40 percent of total power generation, about 15 percentage points higher than in 2013. Over the past decade, more than half of the increase in total electricity consumption across Chinese society came from newly added clean energy generation, and the green content of China's energy has continued to rise.

Second, China's energy transition has supported high-quality economic and social development. Over the past decade, cumulative fixed-asset investment in the energy sector was about 39 trillion yuan, averaging nearly 4 trillion yuan a year, and primary energy production capacity grew by 35 percent, strongly supporting China's steady and healthy economic and social development. China has established a complete industrial chain for energy equipment manufacturing. Technological innovation in fields such as new energy, hydropower, nuclear power, power transmission and transformation, and new-type energy storage has continued to accelerate, driving the clean energy industry to grow into a new pillar of the modern industrial system.

Third, China's energy transition has safeguarded the people's need for a better life. Over the past decade, China's energy supply and demand have remained balanced, energy prices have been generally stable, and the energy security of 1.4 billion people has been effectively guaranteed. Central budget investment in the upgrading and transformation of rural power grids exceeded 100 billion yuan in total. In 2015, China historically resolved the problem of electricity access for the country's population without electricity. National per capita residential electricity consumption grew from 500 kilowatt-hours to nearly 1,000 kilowatt-hours, doubling. The scale of household photovoltaic systems in rural areas reached 120 million kilowatts, which can increase farmers' incomes by 11 billion yuan a year and create about 2 million jobs.

Fourth, China's energy transition has been advanced in coordination with high-level ecological and environmental protection. Compared with 2012, China's energy consumption per unit of GDP has fallen by more than 26 percent in cumulative terms, and energy resources have been developed in a green and intensive way. The quality of refined petroleum products has reached the world's advanced level, the average coal consumption for power supply of coal-fired power has dropped to 303 grams of standard coal per kilowatt-hour, and the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emission levels of advanced coal-fired power units are equivalent to the limits for natural gas-fired generating units. China's energy transition has effectively promoted marked improvement in the ecological environment and the building of a Beautiful China.

Finally, China's energy transition has made important contributions to the global energy transition and to jointly building a clean and beautiful world. In 2023, China's energy transition investment reached 676 billion US dollars, making it the country with the largest energy transition investment in the world. China has continued to expand opening-up and cooperation, providing high-quality clean energy products and services to the world. In 2023, exported wind power and photovoltaic products helped other countries reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 810 million tons. China's new energy industry has not only enriched global supply and helped lower the cost of the global energy transition, but has also made important contributions to the global green transition and to addressing climate change.