In mid-July, the news spread around the world that in 2024, China is allegedly on the verge of achieving its energy goal, set for 2030. Such evidence was then provided by the Global Report on Wind Energy – he stated that the country had to fully implement the plan within the next month. Judging by new statements, that's exactly what happened.
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The essence of the goal that China set for itself in 2020 was to install at least 1,200 gigawatts of clean energy sources – from wind, water and sun. Part of these efforts was the high-profile project of China Three Gorges Renewables Group, which was supposed to build new solar power plants with a total capacity of 455 gigawatts.
In its new statement, the National Energy Administration of China claims that the country has reached 1 206 gigawatts thanks to the last 25 gigawatts of turbines and panels installed last month.
This milestone is crucial for China, the world's biggest polluter, which produced about 12 .7 billion tons of emissions annually as of 2023. By comparison, the United States ranks second at 5.9 billion tons.
China spends more on clean energy than any other country, but it still has a long way to go a long way in which it will close old coal-fired power plants and modernize production to produce less emissions. Currently, solar and wind generate only 14 percent of the country's energy that will be produced in 2024.
The process can hardly be expected to stop there. On the way to energy independence, a real unannounced race has begun between the United States and China. Each country invests more and more. The Biden administration, for example, allowed the conversion of old nuclear sites into solar power plants. As for China, the China Three Gorges Renewables Group project with its 455 gigawatts of energy is still far from finished, so we can expect the overall clean energy figure to rise in the near future.