Promoting the Initial Construction of a New Energy System During the 15th Five-Year Plan Period

Ren Yuzhi, Director of the Planning Department of the National Energy Administration

Energy is an important material foundation for economic and social development. The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China first proposed accelerating the planning and construction of a new energy system, and the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee further clarified the goal of initially building a new energy system and developing a strong energy country during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. This is a new deployment and requirement made by the Party Central Committee based on a profound understanding of the global energy development trend and China's energy development status, providing a fundamental guideline and action program for energy development. Over the past year, we have fully promoted the conclusion of the 14th Five-Year Plan for Energy Development, planned the development direction and path of energy during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and comprehensively advanced the research and compilation of the 15th Five-Year Plan for the Construction of a New Energy System.

The Successful Completion of the 14th Five-Year Plan for Energy Development

Under the guidance of the new energy security strategy of "Four Revolutions and One Cooperation", we have coordinated the high-quality development and high-level security of energy, and promoted the on-schedule completion of 14 major indicators, 19 major strategic tasks and 34 categories of major projects specified in the 14th Five-Year Plan for Energy Development, laying a solid foundation for the construction of a new energy system.

The capacity to ensure energy security has reached a new level: the total primary energy production has exceeded 5 billion tons of standard coal, with the self-sufficiency rate stably maintained above 80%. The major energy transmission arteries including the West-East Power Transmission, West-East Natural Gas Transmission and North-South Coal Transportation have been continuously consolidated and expanded, strongly supporting the sufficient supply and stable prices of energy. The green and low-carbon transformation has achieved leaping development, with the construction of the world's largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system. Nearly half of the incremental energy demand during the 14th Five-Year Plan period was met by non-fossil energy, whose proportion in the total energy consumption has exceeded 20%. The vitality of reform and innovation has been continuously unleashed: a number of national landmark energy projects such as the Baihetan Hydropower Station, the world's first high-temperature gas-cooled reactor and the Deep Sea No.1 energy station have been completed and put into operation, and the new energy storage and hydrogen energy industries have achieved large-scale development. The construction of a unified national electricity market has been accelerated, the cumulative trading volume of green certificates has exceeded 1.4 billion, and new models such as direct green power connection have flourished. International cooperation has opened up a new chapter: the diversified import of energy has remained stable, green energy project cooperation has been carried out with more than 100 countries and regions, and China's influence and voice in global energy governance have been significantly enhanced.

Over the past five years, we have strived to improve a well-positioned energy planning system with clear boundaries, complementary functions and integrated connection, promoting the formation of a unified national energy planning framework to better exert the guiding and normative role of energy planning in energy development. We have promoted the promulgation of the Energy Law of the People's Republic of China, revised and issued the Measures for the Administration of Energy Planning, improved the planning implementation mechanism, carried out dynamic monitoring, evaluation and adjustment of planning implementation, and strengthened the supervision of local governments' implementation of national energy plans to ensure the consistent advancement of the planning. These efforts have provided a strong institutional guarantee and practical experience for further improving energy planning work.

The New Situation and Requirements for Energy Development

The profound changes unseen in a century in the world are accelerating, the global energy landscape is undergoing in-depth adjustment, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is breaking through at a faster pace, and the green and low-carbon transformation has become an irresistible trend in energy development. The internal and external environment for the construction of China's new energy system is undergoing profound and complex changes.

The increasing number of uncertainties has brought greater challenges to energy security. Internationally, the world is experiencing intertwined changes and escalating turbulence, and energy has become a focal point of strategic competition. The camp-based trend in global energy trade has become more evident, and competition for resource rights, passage rights and market rights has become increasingly fierce, bringing greater uncertainties to China's import of some energy resources. At the same time, the overall supply and demand of international oil and gas is loose with falling prices, which is conducive to China's better coordination of domestic and international markets and resources. Domestically, the steady economic and social development has led to a rigid growth in energy demand, with more prominent peak power load characteristics and a widening peak-valley difference in the power system. The scale of the energy system has continued to expand and its complexity has increased dramatically. Risks such as extreme weather, cyber attacks and cascading failures have increased, making the dispatching, operation, control and risk defense of the energy system more difficult.

The goal of carbon peaking has put forward higher requirements for energy transformation. Energy is the main battlefield for achieving carbon peaking, and accelerating the transformation of energy production and consumption modes during the 15th Five-Year Plan period still faces a series of challenges. On the one hand, the incremental energy demand will be mainly met by non-fossil energy, bringing greater development space for the wind, solar, hydro and nuclear energy industries. It is urgent to improve the safe and reliable substitution capacity and system absorption capacity of new energy, and strengthen the guarantee of factors for project construction. At the same time, traditional fossil energy is facing the dual pressure of providing security support and realizing transformation and carbon reduction. On the other hand, diverse market players are emerging at an accelerated pace, and new forms and models of business are booming. The functional positioning of traditional and new energy sources has changed, and their interest relations have been in-depth adjusted. A market mechanism that fully reflects the differentiated values of various energy types in terms of security support, system regulation and green attributes is urgently needed to be established.

Scientific and technological innovation has injected stronger impetus into the development of new productive forces. Internationally, major countries have strengthened their strategic layout for energy science and technology, and energy sci-tech innovation has entered a period of intense activity. Major countries have increased R&D and application of cutting-edge technologies such as hydrogen energy, solid-state batteries, advanced nuclear power and marine energy. Artificial intelligence has become a new variable reshaping the international energy landscape, which is expected to drive systemic changes in the production, transmission and consumption of energy. Domestically, China's energy science and technology has generally entered a critical stage of keeping pace with the world in most areas and leading in some, with a large number of new technologies and industries booming, and technologies such as new energy and new energy storage maintaining a world-leading position. At the same time, however, we still face problems such as insufficient original innovation capacity, shortcomings in some key core technologies and equipment, and the need to strengthen the collaborative innovation of industry, academia, research and application.

Steadily Promoting the Construction of the New Energy System During the 15th Five-Year Plan Period

2026 is the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. We will issue and implement the plan for the new energy system and a series of sector-specific energy plans, thoroughly implement the new energy security strategy, accelerate the construction of the new energy system, and advance the development of a strong energy country, so as to provide a strong energy support for making decisive progress in basically realizing socialist modernization.

Optimize the energy development layout. We will coordinate energy and economy, total volume and structure, the whole country and regions, and domestic and international development, optimize the layout and flow of energy resource bases, and strengthen the on-site energy balance and the coordination of inter-provincial resource allocation. We will improve the energy self-sufficiency capacity of the eastern region, and strive to meet more than 70% of the incremental energy consumption in the region through local production during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. We will promote the better transformation of the western region's resource advantages into development advantages, and strengthen the coordinated layout of industrial transfer and clean energy development. We will comprehensively optimize the layout of major energy transmission arteries and build key circulation corridors for major energy products.

Strengthen the guidance of target indicators. Target indicators are the "baton" for energy development. With the overall goal of initially building a new energy system during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we will focus on four aspects: first, ensuring a more sufficient energy supply by further improving the comprehensive energy production capacity to effectively respond to normal supply and demand fluctuations and abnormal disturbances; second, optimizing the energy structure by making new energy the main body of power installed capacity, raising the proportion of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption to 25%, and increasing the proportion of electricity in terminal energy consumption by about 1 percentage point every year; third, upgrading the system form by improving the robust, green, low-carbon, integrated and intelligent new energy infrastructure system; fourth, enhancing reform and innovation by deepening the integration of energy sci-tech innovation and industrial innovation, and accelerating the improvement of the market and price mechanism adapted to the new energy system.

Push forward the implementation of key tasks. First, intensify the construction of new energy infrastructure, expand the non-fossil energy supply system, and build a new power system adapted to a high proportion of new energy. Second, build a robust and resilient energy supply chain, consolidate the foundation of energy strategic security, operational security and emergency security, and strengthen energy security under the open condition. Third, accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of energy consumption, promote the peaking of coal and oil consumption, and strengthen the clean substitution of terminal energy consumption. Fourth, accelerate the achievement of high-level self-reliance and self-improvement in energy science and technology, strengthen the innovation of key technologies and equipment, and raise the modernization level of the energy industrial chain. Fifth, strengthen the institutional guarantee for the high-quality development of energy, accelerate the construction of a unified national energy market system, and improve the energy legal, standard and regulatory systems.

Construct major engineering projects. Engineering projects are an important grasp for the implementation of the plan, and we will emphasize that "projects follow the plan". On the one hand, we will solidly advance the construction of strategic and landmark major projects, safely and orderly push forward the construction of the Yaxia Hydropower Project, lay out and build the Three-North Wind and PV Bases, Southwest Hydro-Wind-Solar Integrated Bases, coastal nuclear power bases and offshore wind power bases, and optimize the construction of major power and oil and gas transmission arteries. On the other hand, we will speed up the construction of a number of small but sophisticated projects, implement the project for upgrading the electric vehicle charging network, lay out and build several wind-solar-hydrogen-ammonia-alcohol integrated bases, construct a number of concentrated solar power projects, build a number of zero-carbon parks, and promote the green transformation of thermal systems.