On Friday, the National Energy Administration (NEA) of China said in a press conference that the total installed capacity of renewable energy in China has reached over 1,000 GW, with wind and solar both surpassing 300 GW.
In 2021, China added 134 GW of renewable energy capacity, accounting for 76.1% of the total capacity added last year.
Among them, 23.49 GW of hydropower, 47.57 GW of wind power, 54.88 GW of solar power and 8.08 GW of biomass were added, accounting for 13.3%, 27%, 31.1% and 4.6% of the country’s newly installed capacity respectively.
By the end of 2021, the total installed capacity of renewable energy has reached 1063 GW, accounting for 44.8% of the total installed capacity. Solar PV, in particular, has topped 306 GW, which is 12.9% of the total installed capacity.
In the past year, 54.88 GW of solar PV was installed, which is the largest amount so far. Among them, utility-scale projects have contributed 25.6 GW, while distributed solar installations added 29.28 GW.
Region-wise, North China, East China and Central China have installed the most amount of solar projects, taking up 39%, 19% and 15% of the country’s newly installed capacity.
Power generation from renewable energy also rose steadily
In 2021, the renewable energy power generation reached 2.48 trillion kWh, accounting for 29.8% of the power consumption of the whole society.
Among them, hydropower generated 1340.1 billion kWh, wind generated 652.6 billion kWh, an increase of 40.5% year-on-year, while Solar PV generated 325.9 billion kWh with a year-on-year increase of 25.1%.
Hydropower, wind, solar PV and biomass account for 16.1%, 7.9%, 3.9% and 2% of the total power consumption respectively.
In 2021, the utilization rate of power generated from solar PV reached 98%, which was basically the same as that of the previous year.
The consumption of solar PV power in Xinjiang, Tibet and other places increased significantly, with the utilization rate rising by 2.8% and 5.6% respectively year-on-year.
