China has been steadily shifting towards a cleaner power mix. The 28 per cent share of non-fossil fuel generation in 2015 had risen to 38 per cent by 2024. But a closer look at the provincial-level figures reveals a highly uneven transition.
In the north, clean power’s share increased from 20 per cent in 2020 to 31 per cent in 2024, while the south was almost stuck, going from 43 per cent to 45 per cent.
Why have some of China’s provinces made rapid progress, while others have lagged or even increased their reliance on fossil fuels?
On the whole, southern provinces’ rich hydropower resources have made them complacent. They have not put enough investment into wind and solar capacity, or into coordinating grid operation between provinces to better accommodate such renewables.
Meanwhile, provinces in the north have introduced market-based incentives to encourage coal power plants to ramp up or down to better support renewables. Enhanced cooperation between provinces in balancing and dispatch has also played an important role.
Decarbonising the electricity sector is the single most important step towards China achieving its carbon-neutrality goals. That makes understanding these regional disparities crucial.
Furthermore, while the power mix is getting cleaner, power generation from fossil fuels has continued to increase. This makes it clear that to reach peak emissions in the power sector, clean energy deployment must accelerate and outstrip the growth in demand.
The following analysis is based on a novel dataset of province-level power generation that we have created at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, to track trends in monthly power generation by source.
The clean power shift is a tale of two regions
Recent progress towards a cleaner electricity mix has taken place almost entirely in northern China.
From 2020 to 2024, nine provinces increased their share of clean power generation by more than 10 percentage points. Leading the way were Liaoning (+22), Heilongjiang (+21), Jilin (+21), Qinghai (+18), Hebei (+16), Henan (+15), Shandong (+13) and Gansu (+13), while setbacks were recorded in Chongqing (-9), Guizhou (-5), Yunnan (-3), Guangdong (-2), Hubei (-1) and Zhejiang (0).
China’s three north-eastern provinces – Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin – hold the top three spots, and the provinces making the fastest progress are all northern. All those that backslid are in the south.
Only six provinces succeeded in reducing power generation from fossil fuels: Shandong, Beijing and Tibet, as well as all three north-eastern provinces.
Here, we delve into the drivers of these trends and find important lessons for China’s energy transition.
North-east China leads the way
The three northeastern provinces made the fastest progress by far. In the same period, power generation from fossil fuels fell in all three, while it increased in every other Chinese region.
The increase in clean power generation in the north-east came from wind, nuclear, bioenergy and solar, in that order. In terms of capacity, 21 gigawatts (GW) of wind power were added, 15GW of solar (of which 8GW distributed), and 2.2GW of nuclear. Another 14GW of nuclear is in preparation in Liaoning.
Liaoning achieved the largest increase in the share of clean power (22 percentage points), with the largest increases coming from nuclear, wind, solar and biomass, in that order. Power demand in the province grew slowly, despite a respectable average GDP growth rate of 7 per cent over the period.
Liaoning has set an ambitious goal of becoming a “clean energy powerhouse”. The province has been working towards clean energy representing 55 per cent of its installed capacity and at least 48 per cent of its power generation by 2025, rising to 70 per cent for both by 2030. In fact, clean power generation already surpassed 50 per cent of Liaoning’s total power generation in 2024.
Notably, nuclear power is expected to play a key role in achieving these targets. Its targeted share of total power generation is at least 22 per cent this year, and 30 per cent by 2030. Liaoning hosts three major nuclear power bases, and its nuclear generation share has grown significantly compared to other coastal provinces. While it was not selected as one of China’s five clean energy demonstration provinces, Liaoning is the first to set a particularly ambitious target for clean energy’s share of power generation.
Best and worst performers in other regions
Among China’s eastern coastal provinces, Hebei and Shandong took the largest strides towards cleaning their power mix. This was enabled by the largest solar capacity increases of any of China’s provinces during 2021-2024, with 50 and 53 gigawatts of solar added in Hebei and Shandong respectively. Both provinces pursued both centralised and distributed solar.
Two eastern provinces, Shandong and Beijing, succeeded in reducing power generation from fossil fuels in absolute terms. Beijing relied on increased electricity imports to achieve its reduction, while Shandong’s fall was mainly enabled by increasing its own clean power generation.
Among the four provinces covering a single megacity, Tianjin (+10 per cent) was the best performer, with Chongqing (-10 per cent) going backwards and Beijing (+1 per cent) and Shanghai (+3 per cent) barely moving.
Among the key economic regions of the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas, Jiangsu (+9 per cent) fared the best, with Guangdong (-3 per cent) the worst performer and Zhejiang (-0.1 per cent) making no progress. Jiangsu has kept thermal power expansion relatively restrained, while Guangdong, despite having good solar and offshore wind conditions, has prioritised coal power expansion and raised its coal power capacity targets.
In central China, the performances of Henan (+13 per cent) and Anhui (+8 per cent) stand out. They had some of the fastest rates of generation growth nationally but still succeeded in cleaning up the power mix. These provinces also have relatively high population densities.
In western China, Qinghai achieved the largest increase in the share of clean power, and the largest such increase outside of the north-east.
Clean power generation growth came entirely from centralised solar power and wind power plants: 21GW of solar and 7GW of wind were added. The second-largest increase in the share of clean power took place in Gansu, where 23GW of wind and 22GW of solar were added.
Qinghai’s share of clean power started very high, but the province still managed to deliver large enough capacity gains to overtake Yunnan and Sichuan.
The worst performers were also to be found in the west. Chongqing and Guizhou experienced the largest drops in the share of clean electricity, with fossil power generation growing even faster than total generation.
Chongqing is in a very challenging position, having some of the poorest solar and wind conditions in the country and among the fastest-growing power demand. Guizhou’s power demand growth has been much slower and, while not outstanding, its solar and wind resources are very similar to, for example, Anhui.
Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang achieved much larger absolute increases in clean power generation than Qinghai and Gansu (particularly from wind), but these were overshadowed by rapid growth in coal-fired power generation.
Southern provinces lag behind
The top performers for cleaning the power mix include provinces with low and high incomes, eastern and western, densely and sparsely populated. But there is one clear distinction: all are in the north, while almost all the laggards are in the south.
In seven of the 15 southern provinces, including the economic powerhouses of Guangdong and Zhejiang, the share of clean power fell or stagnated.
Power generation from fossil fuels grew by 28 per cent in southern China from 2020 to 2024, compared with 12 per cent in the north. This has obvious consequences for CO2 emissions growth.
The south hosts the vast majority of China’s hydro and nuclear power capacity, but these sources have not kept up with power demand. Consequently, their share of the provinces’ total power generation has fallen, dragging down the total clean energy share.
Because of that strong hydro and nuclear base, the south had faster growth in clean energy until 2022, when the north took the lead. During 2021-2024, 70 per cent of China’s new wind capacity and 53 per cent of its new solar was installed in the north.
There are some obvious reasons why the north finds it easier to grow wind and solar power generation – although they do not fully explain the gap.
The north on average has better solar and wind conditions than the south. Yet even those southern provinces with relatively favourable conditions performed worse than the northern provinces. For example, Guangdong has comparable solar and onshore wind conditions to Henan, and can also develop offshore wind. Zhejiang has good wind conditions and Sichuan has good solar conditions.
The south has a higher population density than the north, which could make it harder to site large amounts of renewables. But even those northern provinces with a high population density performed better than southern provinces.
It appears southern provinces got stuck on the notion of being “hydropower-rich” and have not recognised the need to invest in other clean energy.
Southern provinces have done little to coordinate grid operation, which would make it easier to integrate wind and solar power into their grids. Instead, each province tries to accommodate the variations in demand and supply within its own local grid. This is a missed opportunity. The hydropower plants in hydro-rich provinces would be the ideal complement to solar and wind, because they can adjust output rapidly and flexibly.
The progress in north-western provinces is largely thanks to the massive clean energy bases developed in the region. Out of China’s nine major clean energy bases, three are in the south-western provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan. However, their scale has remained far more modest than that of those in the north.
The lower clean energy ambition in southern China also seems paradoxical from an economic perspective, because almost all of China’s domestic coal production is in the north. The south relies more heavily on imports.
The manufacturing and export powerhouses of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong accelerated solar development in 2024, topping the list of distributed solar capacity additions. These provinces have a vast number of industrial sites suitable for solar power generation, with existing grid connections and large and stable on-site power demand.
What has driven provincial clean energy growth?
To decarbonise the power mix, clean generation must grow faster than total generation. In provinces with rapid generation growth, this requires far larger investments in developing clean energy sources than in those with more moderate generation growth. Yet Inner Mongolia, Anhui and Gansu are examples of provinces making significant gains in cleaning up their power mixes despite rapid generation growth.
The north-east achieved the largest increase in clean energy share for two reasons: it had the largest increase in clean power, and the lowest power demand growth rate.
The region’s power demand growth averaged 3.2 per cent per year, compared with 7 per cent nationally. Clean power growth is helped by having some of the best solar and wind conditions in China.
While faster electricity demand growth made it harder to clean up the power mix, a faster GDP growth rate did not. The strong performers include provinces with faster-than-average GDP growth, like Shandong and Gansu, while the GDP of Guizhou and Chongqing grew at rates below the national average. Rather, what matters is the structure of the growth: if growth comes from the most energy-intensive sectors, this leads to rapid electricity demand growth that makes improvements more difficult.
The progress in north-east China highlights the importance of improving the ability of the power grid to accommodate variable wind and solar. Abundant wind resources and relatively slow growth in power demand once led to severe wind curtailment – that is, wastage – as coal power capacity failed to adjust to the variations of wind power output.
To address this challenge, especially the fluctuations in wind and solar output, the region has introduced market-based incentives. These encourage coal power plants to ramp up or down as needed, balancing supply and demand.
Generous subsidies spurred a wave of retrofits to enhance coal power plants’ “peak-shaving” capability. This eased the integration of clean energy and allowed coal to play a more supportive role. As a result, in the first half of 2024, the average load factor of centrally dispatched coal power units in Liaoning dropped as low as 26 per cent – one of the deepest peak-shaving levels among provinces.
Importantly, enhanced regional coordination in power balancing and dispatch among the three north-eastern provinces has further optimised grid utilisation. This creates more space for clean energy integration.
The provinces with the largest capacity of distributed solar, Hebei and Shandong, have made energy storage a priority. Hebei leads the nation in total pumped storage capacity, and became the first province to introduce a dedicated pricing policy for stand-alone storage.
This incentivises storage operators to store surplus renewable energy during off-peak hours and release it when demand is high. Meanwhile, Shandong dominates nationally for new energy storage capacity.
A cautionary tale has emerged in Henan. Another leader in distributed solar, the province’s development of solar capacity slowed sharply in 2024 compared to 2023. This is because Henan’s grid development and management has failed to keep up with the growth in solar.
For many of the provinces leading clean energy deployment, developing both power capacity and the manufacturing industry have gone hand-in-hand.
Hebei hosts several leading solar manufacturing firms, and has led the deployment of storage and power grid technologies. And Shandong is home to nearly 70,000 enterprises in the solar power generation sector, far more than any other province. Jiangsu’s strong growth in clean energy generation is supported by its complete solar PV supply chain and robust wind turbine industry.
Challenges and opportunities in China’s clean power future
As the share of clean energy in China’s power generation increases, achieving further progress requires accelerated investment. Many southern provinces fell behind when hydropower investment could no longer keep pace with power demand and other clean power sources were not developed fast enough.
Qinghai and Gansu, with their high initial shares of clean sources, performed much better than the southern hydropower provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Hubei.
Yet, as mentioned, hydropower should be the ideal complement to renewables, able to adjust rapidly and flexibly to variations in wind and solar output – once the power system reforms that provide the incentive for doing so are implemented. In the meantime, coastal provinces can develop offshore wind and nuclear power. Indeed, the revival of nuclear construction will help several coastal provinces in the next five years.
The growth of solar and wind is now pushing against the grid’s capacity limitations. It is therefore essential to develop viable business models for hybrid power plants combining solar with electricity storage, more flexible grid operations, more flexible coal and gas power plant operations, as well as to improve grid infrastructure.
Provinces and regions that do a good job of adapting their power grids to the increasing share of variable wind and solar generation will attract more investment and gain an economic advantage in the transition. Regional-level coordination can make grids much more flexible, as demonstrated in the north-east.
The mix of energy sources must be adapted to local conditions. Western provinces with a lot of available land have been able to develop large, centralised wind and solar plants.
More densely populated provinces have additionally tapped into the potential for distributed solar, at industrial and residential sites. For example, Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu, which all achieved substantial improvements, have higher population densities than most provinces that performed poorly.
As emission targets become more stringent and limit power generation from coal and gas, provinces unable to develop local, low-carbon generation will increasingly rely on imports.
The provincial availability of clean electricity will become an increasingly important factor in economic competitiveness. This will be a key motivation for provincial leaders to find locally appropriate ways to boost the sector’s development.
With thanks to Qi Qin, Arttu Säynäjäkangas and Chengcheng Qiu for their research. Qin and Qiu are China analysts with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Säynäjäkangas is a freelance analyst.
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence.
