Recently, the International Energy Security Research Center of the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Graduate School) and the Social Sciences Academic Press jointly released the "World Energy Blue Book: World Energy Development Report (2024)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") in Beijing. The Report shows that in the whole year of 2023, 370 million kilowatts of new renewable energy capacity was added, and China's power installation structure has accelerated its green and low-carbon transformation.

The Report points out that as of 2023, China's cumulative installed power generation capacity continued to grow, reaching 2.92 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 13.7%. Among them, coal power installed capacity remained at around 1.16 billion kilowatts, while the installed capacity of renewable energy power generation such as hydropower, wind power, solar power, and biomass increased to 1.45 billion kilowatts, achieving further growth in installed renewable energy generation capacity.

In the whole year of 2023, 370 million kilowatts of new renewable energy capacity was added, accounting for 82.7% of the country's newly added power generation capacity, continuing to maintain its position as the main force in new power installations. Among them, newly added wind power and solar power installed capacity reached 76 million kilowatts and 220 million kilowatts, respectively. The total installed capacity of wind power, solar power, and photovoltaic power generation exceeded 1 billion kilowatts, demonstrating that China's development momentum in the fields of wind power, solar power, and photovoltaics remains strong.

 The Report's analysis suggests that as the share of wind and photovoltaic power generation in the power structure continues to rise, this requires the power system to further enhance its regulation capacity, and also creates more urgent demand for the construction of energy storage facilities and the advancement of integrated wind-solar-storage projects. It is necessary to strengthen cross-regional power dispatch capacity and optimize the allocation of power resources to adapt to the new changes brought about by renewable energy development. It is expected that in 2024, China will continue to advance the optimization and upgrading of the power structure, further increase the proportion of renewable energy in power supply, and lay a solid foundation for achieving energy transition and carbon neutrality goals.