By Qi Qin, Belinda Schäpe, and Lauri Myllyvirta
China’s new plan for building a new-type energy system during the 15th Five-Year Plan (FYP) period sends a signal about the continued expansion of clean energy, but the targets would have to be exceeded by a wide margin to keep China on track for its wider energy transition and climate pledges. It is a consolidation of the energy-system architecture Beijing has already been preparing, rather than a vision for the energy transformation that is required.
Several headline targets are not new. The target for non-fossil energy to reach 25% of total energy consumption by 2030 was already set in 2020 and is now outdated due to the acceleration of clean energy growth in recent years. Likewise, the target for ‘new energy’ generation (wind and solar) to reach 30% of total power generation by 2030 had already been signalled in earlier policy discussions and was also embedded in the 2025 guidance on high-quality grid development.
The power sector target is weak. The target for non-fossil sources to provide 50% of power generation by 2030 still leaves roughly half of China’s electricity generation coming from fossil fuels. Starting from the plan’s 2025 baseline of 42.3% non-fossil generation, if total power generation grows by 5% per year, total generation would be about 27.6% higher by 2030. Under a 50% non-fossil share, fossil fuel generation, especially from coal, could still rise by around 10.6% over the period and the target would still be met. The plan reiterates that coal consumption should peak during the 15th FYP period, but it has no quantitative cap on coal generation or capacity, nor any explicit roadmap for phasing down coal.
The new carbon intensity target for the power sector is even more conservative. The plan requires power sector carbon emissions per unit of generation to fall by more than 10% from 2025 level by 2030. Directionally, that is positive. But it does not imply an absolute fall in power-sector emissions. With 5% annual growth in power generation, a 10% reduction in carbon intensity would still allow power sector carbon emissions to increase by roughly 15% over the period, or almost 3% per year. To keep absolute power-sector emissions flat by 2030, carbon intensity would need to fall by roughly 22% if power generation grows by 5% per year. That makes the target look modest compared with recent progress. Ember estimates that China’s power sector carbon intensity fell to 525gCO2/kWh in 2025, down 5% from 2024. China’s official 2024 national electricity carbon footprint factor also fell by 6.9% year on year.
The wind and solar targets tell the same story. The plan says wind and solar should account for more than 50% of installed power capacity by 2030. That sounds large, but it requires only about 170GW of new wind and solar capacity per year, far below the roughly 430GW added in 2025. The target for 30% of generation from wind and solar is also modest. Wind and solar already accounted for 15.8% of China’s power generation in 2023, 18.6% in 2024 and 22% in 2025, increasing by an average of 3.1 percentage points per year over the past two years. Raising the share from 22% in 2025 to 30% by 2030 would require only about 1.6 percentage points per year–roughly half the recent pace.
The plan’s revealing details lie in the system targets behind the headline clean energy share. Its target for the grid to support 900GW of distributed renewables by 2030 is meaningful. Distributed solar capacity had reached about 530GW by the end of 2025, so the target would allow almost 100GW of additional distributed renewables per year. It should also support better use of the capacity already connected, which matters as distributed solar puts more pressure on local grids.
Storage and flexibility targets are also more concrete than the emissions targets. The plan calls for 300GW of new energy storage by 2030, roughly continuing the record 2025 installation pace of about 66GW per year. However, industry associations such as the China Energy Storage Alliance are more bullish in their forecast, expecting up to 450 GW of new energy storage by 2030. The plan also sets targets of 50GW of vehicle-to-grid capacity and 50GW of virtual power plants by 2030. These are useful targets because China’s transition is now constrained less by the ability to build wind and solar than by the ability to integrate them, dispatch them, and use them efficiently.
Another new target is for ‘generator and storage regulating capacity’ to increase by more than 40%. This appears to be a new metric for power system flexibility. The plan defines it only briefly as the sum of generation-side and storage regulating capacity. It does not yet provide a detailed official methodology on what resources count, how duration and availability are treated, how coal flexibility, pumped hydro, storage, virtual power plants or demand response are weighted, and what the baseline is. That makes the target potentially important, but still difficult to interpret. What seems clear is that it combines together clean flexibility technologies and coal-fired power plants, rather than prioritizing the former.
Electrification is one of the stronger parts of the plan. The plan targets electricity reaching 35% of final energy consumption by 2030, up from 30% in 2025. This puts China five years ahead of the COP31 presidency’s proposed global target of reaching 35% electrification by 2035. China is already electrifying faster than the United States and Europe: its electrification rate reached 30% in 2025, up 4.1 percentage points from 2020, compared with 23% in Europe and around 22% in the United States. The 2030 target reflects the rapid electrification of transport, industry, buildings and new growth sectors in China. But it also reinforces the central challenge: electrification only cuts emissions at scale if clean power grows fast enough to meet new electricity demand and displace fossil generation.
The plan comes at a time of continuously heightened energy security concerns, which have in the past mostly translated into coal as an energy security provider. While Beijing’s leaders are increasingly framing the transition to clean energy as a way to ensure energy security, this new plan still leaves ample wiggle room for China’s traditional coal power interests, rather than doubling down on the clean energy sectors, which are already proving not only more reliable but also significant economic contributors.
Overall, the targets in the plan alone are insufficient for China to meet its existing climate commitments. Many of the headline targets look like conservative floors, or the formalisation of previously signalled objectives. It suggests a continued reluctance to use binding volume targets to force down fossil generation. The missing piece could still come from the top. China’s new carbon dual-control policy gives central leaders a stronger tool to turn carbon targets into incentives for local governments. If the top leadership makes carbon control a clear priority, it could override the low ambition in this plan. Without that push, the plan will not by itself force a decline in power-sector emissions by 2030.