China is driving the world’s advanced energy solutions deployments. Here's how

China has been the leading force in accelerating advanced energy solutions deployments like energy storage and clean hydrogen. It also has a strong position in the fields of advanced nuclear, Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS), and sustainable aviation fuels.

Investments in clean energy technologies made by China in 2023 were more than the cumulative total of the other top 10 investing countries in that same year. Investments in renewables and the electrification of transport accounted for more than 60% of the total, followed by investments in power grids, energy storage, nuclear technologies, and hard-to-abate sectors.

China deploys vast capacities domestically, and at the same time is the key supplier to global markets. According to IEA, despite the ongoing implementation of domestically focused industrial strategies in other countries, the value of China’s clean technology exports is set to exceed $340 billion in 2035, based on current policy settings. This is roughly equivalent to the projected oil export revenue of both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates combined in 2024.

Moreover, IEA estimates that China is currently the cheapest location for manufacturing key clean energy technologies, without taking into account explicit financial support from governments. It costs up to 40% more on average to produce solar PV modules, wind turbines, and battery technologies in the US, up to 45% more in the EU, and up to 25% more in India.

China’s dominant position across clean technologies is not the result of a short- or medium-term effort. The government there has made huge strides to enable business cases for investment by using mandates, incentives, and comprehensive energy- and industrial policy. This has driven deployments domestically, enabled exports, and created domestic supply chains.

China also invests heavily in R&D. In 2023, the country’s investment in R&D for clean energy technologies was 2.5 times the global world average spending.

Below, we focus on energy storage and clean hydrogen – to showcase how the country has been able to accelerate deployment and reach scale.

In 2021, the Chinese government set a target of 30 gigawatts (GW) of non-hydro energy storage by 2025. The country has already surpassed this initial goal, two years ahead of schedule.

According to China’s National Energy Administration, the country’s overall capacity in the new-type energy storage sector reached 31.4 GW by the end of 2023. It increased capacity year-on-year by more than 260%, and almost 10 times since 2020.

The sector is becoming a “new driving force” for economic growth, attracting over 100 billion yuan (about $13.9 billion) in investment since 2021, and driving further expansion of upstream and downstream industrial chains. This success prompted the government to raise its energy storage target by a third, to 40 GW, by 2025.

Government policies have also played a crucial role in driving demand for energy storage. Aligning with a central government mandate, nearly all provinces have set their own energy storage targets.

China's commitment to hydrogen is not new. As early as 2015, hydrogen's potential was acknowledged as part of the government's "Made in China 2025" plan – a 10-year strategy aimed at upgrading the country's manufacturing industry. Over the past decade, the central government has issued numerous policies to support the development of the hydrogen industry.

China's extensive hydrogen-consumption scenarios, and its position as a major hydrogen user globally, attract significant investment. More than 30 large-scale green hydrogen projects have been announced, under construction, or completed – involving 260 billion RMB ($35.9 billion) of investment.

A high cost of production, transportation issues, and efficiency losses have been some of the major challenges for scaling up green hydrogen. To achieve cost reductions and efficiency improvements across the industrial chain, the most important factor will be finding the optimal balance between electricity costs and equipment utilization. Solar-storage-hydrogen solutions developed by Trina Group and others can serve as key ways to address this challenge. They enable configuration of the core components – photovoltaics, energy storage, and hydrogen – in ways that ensure optimal safety, stability, and economic efficiency, while maximizing clean energy utilization.

While every region, country, industry, and company will decide on its own particular approach, all stakeholders must find ways to cooperate. The World Economic Forum’s Advanced Energy Solutions community looks forward to supporting stakeholders in China and globally.

The Advanced Energy Solutions community aspires to accelerate – from decades to years – the deployment at industrial scale of advanced energy solutions such as clean fuels and hydrogen, advanced nuclear, storage, and carbon removal.

The community engages industry leaders who drive frontier segments of the energy system to shape the advanced energy solutions industry vision and narrative, support partnerships among innovators, large energy companies, energy users, and investors, and inform policymaking. The community helps increase public confidence in advanced energy solutions, technology readiness, demand, and business cases – while enabling collaboration and informing policy.

Contributing authors: Tori Liu, Public Affairs Director, Trina Solar, and Debmalya Sen, Lead, Advanced Energy Solutions Industry, World Economic Forum.