Guided by the "dual carbon" goals, developing new energy and promoting synergistic effects between pollution reduction and carbon reduction have become one of the core tasks of energy transformation.

At the 19th "Low-Carbon Power Supply Seminar" jointly held by the China Institute for Energy Policy of Xiamen University and the Natural Resources Defense Council, industry and academic experts conducted in-depth discussions on the theme of "Recent Review and Outlook of New Energy Development".

The participating experts unanimously agreed that the future development of new energy should focus on both "quantity expansion" and "quality improvement", especially deepening collaboration with various industries, reshaping the energy consumption structure through "green energy substitution", and serving as a key path for pollution reduction and carbon reduction collaboration in terminal industries. At the same time, a multi-dimensional value market system of "electricity quantity + auxiliary services + capacity + green attributes" should be established to adapt to the construction of a new power system with new energy as the mainstay and guide the collaboration between new energy and industries.

Policy anchoring + market collaboration, laying a solid institutional foundation for the development of new energy

The orderly advancement of energy transformation cannot be achieved without the dual efforts of policy guidance and market mechanisms. As a key milestone between the conclusion of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the planning for the 15th Five-Year Plan, 2025 saw the intensive introduction of a series of significant policies by the state, such as the "Notice on Deepening the Market-oriented Reform of Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariffs to Promote High-quality Development of Renewable Energy" and the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Consumption and Regulation of Renewable Energy". These policies not only summarize past practical experience but also provide clear guidance for promoting green and low-carbon development. The core logic of these policies is clear: on the one hand, they fully marketize renewable energy, and on the other hand, they focus on solving the problem of renewable energy consumption, providing institutional guarantees for the high-quality development of renewable energy.

Wang Jingliang, a senior engineer at Guangzhou Electricity Trading Center, pointed out: "The energy industry accounts for nearly 90% of the market carbon emissions, with electricity accounting for nearly half of the energy emissions." As the core energy carrier for fossil energy substitution, the synergy and coupling of the electricity market mechanism and the carbon market is an important lever for achieving pollution reduction and carbon reduction. Currently, China has established a multi-level carbon market system that combines "medium and long-term + spot + ancillary services" electricity market system, full coverage of green certificates for renewable energy electricity, and "national market + local pilot market" as well as "mandatory emission control + voluntary emission reduction".

In the electricity market, the green electricity and green certificate policies are playing a positive role in guiding renewable energy consumption. Taking the southern region as an example, the daily average trading volume of green certificates corresponds to more than 820 million kWh of electricity. By the end of November 2025, the annual trading volume of green electricity and green certificates on the southern region's electricity trading platform had exceeded 300 billion kWh. At major events such as the 15th National Games, Canton Fair, and Boao Forum, the consumption of green electricity and green certificates has become a standard configuration. The trading of green electricity and green certificates not only allows new energy enterprises to monetize their environmental value but also provides traceable evidence for enterprises' green energy use.

In terms of the carbon market, China's carbon market has entered a critical stage of "expansion and deepening + rule optimization". As the first industry to be included, thermal power has seen a trend of tightening total quotas. Although the two initially exhibited parallel development, driven by the "dual carbon" strategy, their collaborative trends in price signals, trading boundaries, and emission reduction targets are becoming increasingly prominent. The carbon market guides coal power emission reduction, while the green power and green certificate markets realize new energy environmental benefits and promote the development of new energy. This optimizes the structure of electric energy supply, achieves a win-win situation between environmental and economic benefits, and helps achieve the "dual carbon" goals.

Scenario empowerment + industrial integration, reducing the consumption of fossil energy in industrialization

Zero-carbon parks are an important scenario for the development of new energy. Li Ke, president of the Hunan Provincial Dual-carbon Research Institute, said, "There are currently more than 2,500 industrial parks in China, with output value accounting for more than 50% of the country's total industrial output value, energy consumption accounting for about 70% of the entire society, and emissions accounting for more than 30%." As the core carrier of industrial activities and the main source of emissions, the zero-carbon transformation of parks is directly related to the overall situation of coal reduction and carbon reduction. The 2024 Central Economic Work Conference included the construction of zero-carbon parks as a key task, and Document No. 910 issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and other departments clearly requires that parks prioritize the development and utilization of surrounding renewable energy. For national-level zero-carbon parks, relevant policies also explicitly state that electricity should be primarily supplied directly through green electricity, with the proportion of direct supply not being less than 50% in principle. This trend will also accelerate the green transformation of energy use in parks.

Currently, many regions have embarked on beneficial explorations in integrating zero-carbon parks with new energy. The Xiangjiang Science City in Hunan Province has incorporated the concept of a new power system during the planning stage, deploying distributed power sources, centralized cooling and heating stations, and a smart charging system, creating a zero-carbon development model that combines photovoltaic pure electric development with an invisible smart grid. It is expected to become a demonstration benchmark for the integration of cities and electricity in the future. Changsha Smart Valley focuses on the computing power industry, building an integrated system of "source-grid-load-storage-data-carbon" centered on shallow geothermal energy and integrating distributed photovoltaics, electrochemical energy storage, and ice storage, providing a replicable path for zero-carbon transformation in regions with average resource endowments. Zhuzhou Qingshuitang is accelerating the construction of a zero-carbon park on the basis of a traditional high-energy-consumption old industrial area through a "dual-wheel drive, six-dimensional collaboration, and platform support" model.

The cross-regional synergy in industries and resources has further expanded the space for carbon reduction. The "Ningxia Electricity to Hunan" UHV DC project serves as a typical case. Leveraging its abundant renewable energy resources, Ningxia generates and transmits over 36 billion kWh of clean electricity annually, equivalent to 20% of Hunan's annual electricity generation and 15% of its annual electricity consumption. Meanwhile, Hunan, capitalizing on its strengths in equipment manufacturing and power technology, has invested in the construction of a new energy equipment manufacturing industrial park in Ningxia, with a total investment exceeding 100 billion yuan. This has formed a win-win situation where "Ningxia's resources exchange for Hunan's industries, and Hunan's technology aids Ningxia's development." This cross-regional synergy model not only addresses the challenge of renewable energy consumption in the western region but also provides stable support for the eastern region in replacing scattered coal and ensuring green energy use, achieving the dual goals of optimizing resource allocation and reducing coal consumption and carbon emissions.

The integration of new energy with high-energy-carrying industries and computing power has broadened the application scenarios of new energy. Li Jianglong, a professor at the School of Economics and Finance of Xi'an Jiaotong University, pointed out that achieving carbon neutrality requires "accelerating energy transformation, that is, replacing coal", and the core path is the application of high-proportion renewable energy and the substitution of terminal electric energy. Currently, the integration of new energy and computing power centers has become a trend. Erdos relies on abundant new energy resources to build large-scale computing power centers, replacing traditional coal power with direct power supply from new energy. This not only meets the high energy consumption demand of the computing power industry but also achieves zero carbon emissions. This integration model of "new energy + high-energy-carrying industries" provides an important reference for traditional high-energy-consuming industries such as steel and chemical industries to replace scattered coal and achieve low-carbon transformation.

Focusing on infrastructure upgrading, technology empowerment, and policy optimization to strengthen the support for carbon reduction during the 14th Five-Year Plan period

During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the core proposition of new energy development will shift from equipment manufacturing to system consumption, which is the key to ensuring the continuous promotion of coal reduction and carbon reduction. Lin Boqiang, dean of the China Institute of Energy Policy at Xiamen University, emphasized: "The focus of the '15th Five-Year Plan' work is on the construction of new energy infrastructure." This type of infrastructure addresses the instability of new energy by "dealing with instability with instability", with the core being to solve the problems of grid stability and new energy consumption.

Currently, the biggest bottleneck facing the development of new energy lies in consumption and storage. The energy storage effect on the power supply side is unsatisfactory, and there is an urgent need to establish a public energy storage system on the grid side. "The government should build it like the high-speed rail system, reducing costs through economies of scale," said Lin Boqiang.

Huang Hui, Senior Director of the Energy Transition Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, stated that achieving high-proportion consumption of renewable energy requires a balanced approach of "hardware upgrades" and "operational coordination". While strengthening the hardware foundation of the transmission and distribution grid, emphasis should be placed on promoting coordinated scheduling and operation of the main grid, distribution grid, and microgrid to enhance the system's ability to cope with volatility and randomness. The planning and construction of energy storage facilities should not solely focus on scale expansion, but rather pursue diversified technological and model development. In addition to parallel development of routes such as flow batteries and compressed air, long-duration, grid-forming, and hybrid energy storage will also become key directions to meet various regulatory needs of the power system under high-proportion renewable energy consumption.

Technological innovation and digitalization empowerment will solve the key challenges of coal reduction and carbon reduction. Li Jianglong pointed out that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, it is necessary to focus on breakthroughs in technologies such as long-duration energy storage and low-cost green hydrogen. These technologies have strong spillover effects and can provide more technical options for the substitution of fossil fuels.

Huang Hui stated that with the increasing penetration of new energy, it is necessary to achieve "observable, controllable, measurable, and adjustable" new energy through artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technology, and promote the development of models such as virtual power plants and microgrids, aggregating massive user-side resources into controllable "aggregates" to enhance the consumption capacity of new energy. Lin Boqiang further proposed that "the end of energy is AI". Improving the accuracy of climate prediction and the efficiency of technological iteration through AI will provide core support for clean and low-carbon development.

Improve market-oriented policies, guide the shift of new energy from scale incentives to quality improvement, and provide sustained momentum for coal reduction and carbon reduction. Jiang Hai, Vice President of the New Energy Research Institute of China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, said that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, new energy policies will "shift from scale incentives to quality guidance, ensuring that new energy can be well built, delivered, and utilized." At the same time, focus will be placed on promoting the realization of green value, including the deep integration of new energy and the carbon market. Regarding the new development model of green electricity direct connection, Li Jianglong said that the "who benefits, who bears the burden" mechanism proposed in Document No. 1192 clearly links transmission and distribution fees to the capacity of the public power grid access, which will force projects to evolve from a single power generation model to an integrated source-grid-load-storage model. It can also screen out high-quality projects that are more friendly to the power grid and even the entire power system.

According to the plan, by 2035, China's installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic power will reach 3.6 billion kilowatts. This scale will lay a solid foundation for building a new power system with new energy as the mainstay and achieving deep decarbonization. With the advancement of new energy infrastructure construction, the deepening of coordination between the electricity and carbon markets, and the integration and expansion of industrial scenarios, China's new energy development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period will enter a new stage of quality improvement and efficiency enhancement. New energy will truly become the mainstay of energy supply, providing strong impetus for achieving the dual carbon goals and building a green and low-carbon society.