How is China leading the green energy sector?

The Hindu

13 hours ago

China installed more wind turbines and solar panels in 2024 than every other nation combined. This statistic alone underlines how China has sped ahead in the global green energy race, cornering the entirety of the renewable supply chain due to firm control over the extraction of key raw materials such as polysilicon and lithium. China also asserts dominance over the manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries.
China's renewable energy revolution is the result of decades of strategic state planning and massive investments in innovation. Starting with modest pilot projects in the early 2000s, Beijing is now leading in solar panel and battery production. In 2024 alone, China allocated a remarkable $940 billion into the renewable energy sector, according to U.K.-based research organisation Carbon Brief, from an initial investment of $10.7 billion in 2006. In comparison, India's renewable energy sector received a combined total investment of $3.4 billion in 2024-25 as per the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water, highlighting the stark gap.
Turning crisis into opportunity
Apart from climate goals, what mainly inspired China's green revolution was a mounting crisis of extremely high levels of air pollution, coupled with concerns about energy insecurity. By the early 2000s, the country's reliance on coal had made its cities nearly unliveable, resulting in air pollution so bad in Beijing and Shanghai that it was visible from space and had garnered global attention. Importantly, growing public awareness about the adverse affects of air pollution played a key role in pressuring the government to act.
Moreover, surging electricity demand left parts of the nation teetering on the edge of blackouts. Also, increasing dependence on foreign oil triggered concerns over energy security. China's oil imports are largely dependent on West Asia and sensitive shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz and the South China Sea.
Therefore, what began as a survival strategy quickly evolved into a platform for national ambition. In less than two decades, China transitioned from an environmental underdog to a clean-energy driven superpower. The turning point came with the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–2010), which elevated renewable energy to a national strategic priority. The passage of the Renewable Energy Law in 2005 created legal backing for this vision, offering grid access guarantees and price incentives for wind and solar producers, particularly private enterprises that received generous government subsidies. The state poured billions into infrastructure and R&D, while provinces like Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Jiangsu were identified as early testing grounds for wind and solar farms, in keeping with the Chinese economic practice of starting with pilot projects before scaling up.
The role of SOEs
State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) and banks had a key role to play in executing plans that were led by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA). Public sector banks provided heavy loans, while industrial giants like State Grid, Huaneng, and Genertec brought wind farms and solar parks online at record speed. As SOEs, these firms didn't face the financial limitations of the private sector.
The speed was enabled by a blend of state coordination and market dynamism. While the policy push ensured demand at home, the sheer manufacturing scale drove down prices abroad. From the start, Beijing had a global vision for its ambitions, using programmes such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to push green trade, whether through the export of solar panels, construction of hydropower stations in Africa or building wind farms in Latin America.
'The undertaking of major national projects, quickly integrating funds, technology, and policy resources, and achieving scale effects that private enterprises cannot achieve, that is what led to this growth achieved by SOEs,' explains Li Menghui, representative of Genertec. SOEs translated national climate policy into large-scale action, deploying wind farms, solar parks, and high-voltage transmission lines in remote regions. Due to the substantial support provided by the central government in the form of mandates, low-interest credit, and political backing, these companies could move more quickly and take significantly greater risks to innovate than their private counterparts globally.
SOEs were also deployed to focus on niche industries, allowing them to use their vast investments in the development and enhancement of a particular technology. Specialised SOEs were not only involved in building domestic energy infrastructure but also served as ambassadors of China's green agenda abroad. SOEsaccount for 55% of global renewable energy investment, as per Bloomberg Finance. China's SOEs turned clean energy into a tool of statecraft, aligning economic development with global dominance in renewable energy. Without them, China's rapid leap from fossil-fuel giant to renewable superpower with global influence would not have been possible.
Lessons learnt
China's green energy push wasn't without bumps along the way. For instance, in the mid-2010s, wind and solar installations outpaced the ability of the national grid to absorb their output. This led to the curtailment of energy, especially in northern provinces such as Inner Mongolia, Jilin, and Gansu where wind power curtailment was as high as 20% in 2014. These bottlenecks revealed a critical gap in transmission infrastructure. Although the creation of renewable energy projects was rapid, other aspects of national infrastructure could not keep up with the growth. Beijing responded through heavy investments in ultra-high voltage transmission lines and more focus on better integrating renewables into the national grid. Over a decade, State Grid doubled its investment from $33.31 billion in 2010 to $88.7 billion this year, according to Reuters.
Another problem was haphazard subsidy policies to SOEs that encouraged wasteful expansion, without adequate oversight. The vast expansion of projects encouraged a build-at-all-costs mentality, leading to redundant projects and inefficiencies across the sector. To correct those issues, Beijing tightened oversight mechanisms and emphasised planning that favoured efficiency and grid-readiness over capacity. One lesson for Beijing was that in the race for renewable development, speed could not trump structure and organisation.
Global influence
With a sprawling global network spanning 61 countries and a web of joint ventures, with local state-owned enterprises, from Angola to Hungary to Bangladesh, China's geopolitical presence in the sector has become deeply entrenched. The current focus is on ensuring dominance in the next wave of clean energy technologies. With support guaranteed by the state to firms such as Longi, Goldwing, and CATL, production costs have been slashed due to market dominance, leading to vertical integration and economies of scale. The next wave of advancement in renewable technology will arrive in the form of AI-powered smart grids, green hydrogen, and next-generation nuclear technologies like thorium reactors, all of which Beijing has set its eyes on with the same formula of aggressive state investment, breakneck deployment, and focus on the export of technology and influence.
The world now faces a bifurcated energy landscape, as the U.S. and its allies scramble to pump billions into reshoring clean energy industries through mechanisms like the Inflation Reduction Act. The key difference between Chinese SOEs and Western private enterprises is the ability of the Chinese state to mobilise large-scale manufacturing capabilities and properly utilise their vast scale. This enables low-cost, high-speed deployment of renewable tech, while the West grapples with higher costs, slower implementation, and far more complex political considerations on the adoption of green energy within each of their countries. The contest of the future, ultimately, will not be about panels or turbines or climate targets but who sets the rules of the global energy game. Will the future of climate tech follow Beijing's centralised, scale-driven blueprint, or will any other player be able to innovate fast enough and demonstrate a credible counter-model to offer to the world?
Kabir Jeet Singh is a student and writer based in Beijing, with a deep interest in global economics, energy policy, and China's ascent.