Reference News Network, January 30 report: According to the Bloomberg News website on January 28, China is launching an unprecedented energy construction boom. The Chinese government is seeking to ensure a power supply for high-energy-consuming facilities, which are key to future emerging industries.

Data released by the National Energy Administration of China on the 28th showed that China added 543 million kilowatts of new power generation capacity last year. This figure is 12% higher than the total installed capacity of all power plants in India as of the end of 2024. The newly added power generation capacity in China since the end of 2021 has exceeded the entire U.S. power system.

The Chinese government's goal is to ensure a stable and sufficient energy supply, reduce reliance on fuel imports, and provide a competitive advantage for continuously developing and energy-intensive industries such as artificial intelligence, robot manufacturing, and advanced materials. At the same time, in the United States, people are increasingly concerned that these industries may be constrained by a lack of affordable electricity.

Michael Martin, head of the China Energy Research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said: "The momentum of China's energy construction remains strong, with data being extremely strong and setting new records repeatedly. First, it is necessary to ensure supply security, not only that, but also to obtain energy supply with competitive prices."

China is adopting a comprehensive energy development strategy. Data from the National Energy Administration of China show that in the newly added capacity last year, more than half came from solar power generation, while wind power and coal-fired power generation capacities also set records. Although nuclear and hydroelectric power increases were smaller, they are expected to play a greater role in the future.

China has the world's largest reserve of nuclear reactor construction projects and plans to turn a large hydropower project in Tibet into the world's largest power station.

The U.S. power demand has been relatively stable for decades, and since then, the speed of new capacity additions has been much slower. Samantha Dart, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs, said that now, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, the U.S. is struggling to meet the needs of energy-intensive data industries, leading to tight electricity markets.

She said: "The U.S. may face bottlenecks, while China seems to have no bottlenecks at all. The current artificial intelligence leadership held by the U.S. may shift to China over time."

Since the 1990s, China has been continuously expanding its power system, but the recent boom may stem from a series of power shortages in 2021 and 2022. Since 2023, China's average annual new power generation capacity has exceeded 400 million kilowatts, compared to about 150 million kilowatts per year in the previous six years.

The Chinese government now must decide on the direction of future development. The significant increase in wind and solar power generation capacity sometimes exceeds the grid's capacity, leading to a slight rise in curtailment rates.

Another factor to consider is that not all power generation capacities are of equal value. Although solar power plants and nuclear power plants may generate the same amount of electricity during a certain period of the day, nuclear power plants generate much more electricity throughout the year.

Recent policy documents indicate that if the focus in recent years was on expanding scale, the focus in the coming years will be on building the grid, reforming the market and systems to ensure better utilization of power generation capacity.

Even so, as the Chinese government prepares to release the 14th Five-Year Plan, it is clear that China will not take the risk of significantly slowing down to jeopardize energy supply security.

Martin said: "Energy must support industrial innovation, upgrading, and technological progress, which is the core of China's economic policies in the 14th Five-Year Plan." (Translated by Qing Songzhu)

Original: toutiao.com/article/7600966098300830242/

Statement: The article represents the personal views of the author.