A wind farm at Rongcheng in East China's Shandong Province on March 19, 2024 Photo: IC

China is making a vital contribution to the global energy shift by providing high-quality and affordable new-energy solutions to overseas clients and investing heavily in its own green energy capacity, analysts and industry experts said on Monday, a day after the fourth anniversary of China's announcement of its "dual carbon" goals.

On Monday, the National Energy Administration released new data indicating that China's total installed power generation capacity expanded 14 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of this year. Solar power's cumulative power generation capacity increased by 48.8 percent to 750 million kilowatts, while wind power rose 19.9 percent year-on-year.

Sunday marked the fourth anniversary of China's pledge to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and realize carbon neutrality by 2060.

According to the China Carbon Neutrality Development Index (2024) released by the Xiamen University's Carbon Neutrality Development Index research team, in collaboration with Jiangnan University's National Security and Green Development Institute, provinces and regions in China are making progress in expanding the scale of carbon neutrality, with improvements in efficiency and quality. 

Sun Chuanwang, a professor at Xiamen University leading the research, told the Global Times on Monday that measures rolled out this year have focused on continuously making improvement on the work of meeting the dual carbon goals. 

Targeted action plans on the construction of a new electricity system, green data centers, the low-carbon transition of traditional industries and the reduction and elimination of fossil fuel use, rolled out in succession this year, have provided policy pathways in realizing dual carbon work during the 2021-25 period, Sun said, noting that obsolete industrial capacity is being methodically phased out and green production capacity is rapidly accumulating. 

In addition to making steady headway domestically, China is also now the main driving force behind global green production, shaping the industrial transition and also fostering the green transition globally, industry insiders said.

Qian Jing, vice president of Chinese photovoltaic giant Jinko Solar, told the Global Times on Monday that China has been a strong contributor to global green development, boosting economic development and creating jobs by nurturing industrialization in many countries in the Middle East and Africa.

"In some parts of Africa, electricity is so expensive that industrialization is unthinkable," Qian said. "For instance, in Ethiopia, electricity is billed at about $2 per kilowatt hour, so developing industries is very challenging. The solar-plus energy storage solution offered by Chinese solar companies can effectively bring down that cost to less than 10 cents, making developing the local economy possible."