China Energy Transition Review 2025

China is rapidly transitioning its energy system through massive investment in renewables, grid infrastructure, and whole-economy electrification. This shift is moving China toward a peak in fossil fuel use and is driving down the global cost of clean technologies, enabling emerging markets to leapfrog traditional development paths and potentially triggering a structural decline in global fossil fuel demand by 2030.

• China's renewable energy generation is growing rapidly, with wind and solar electricity generation increasing by 25% in 2024. In the first half of 2025, wind and solar generation grew by 27% compared to H1 2024, contributing to a 2% decrease in fossil fuel generation during that period.
• China is the world's largest investor in clean energy, spending $625 billion USD in 2024, which represents 31% of the global total. Investment in grid infrastructure reached 608 billion RMB ($85bn USD) in 2024, and battery storage capacity more than tripled between 2021 and 2024.
• Electrification is expanding across China's end-use sectors. Electricity became the largest energy source for industry in 2023, overtaking coal. The share of electricity in final energy consumption reached 32% in 2023, compared to 24% in the US and OECD Europe.
• China's energy-related fossil fuel consumption is nearing a plateau. Final fossil fuel consumption (excluding non-energy use) peaked at 49 exajoules (EJ) in 2015 and declined by 1.7% by 2023.
• China's transition is driven by a strategic shift toward an 'ecological civilisation,' aiming to replace the fossil-fuel-based growth model with one centered on manufactured clean energy goods. This is implemented via a 'build before break' approach, prioritizing clean system build-out before phasing out fossil capacity.
• Chinese manufacturing scale has drastically reduced global costs for clean technologies. In 2024, 91% of newly-commissioned wind and solar facilities globally were cheaper than the cheapest available fossil fuel generation. Chinese battery pack prices fell to approximately $60/kWh by July 2025.
• China's production of affordable technology is enabling an 'emerging market energy leapfrog.' In 2023, 63% of emerging markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America had a higher solar share in power generation than the United States, and 25% had higher economy-wide electrification.
• China's dominance in clean energy innovation is reflected in patent applications, accounting for approximately 75% of global clean energy patents in 2022, up from 5% in 2000.

APA

Yang, M., Yang, B., Butler-Sloss, S., & Graham, E. (2025). China Energy Transition Review 2025. Ember. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/09/China-Energy-Transition-Review-2025.pdf

Chicago

Yang, Muyi, Biqing Yang, Sam Butler-Sloss, and Euan Graham. China Energy Transition Review 2025. Ember, 2025. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/09/China-Energy-Transition-Review-2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Yang |first1=Muyi |last2=Yang |first2=Biqing |last3=Butler-Sloss |first3=Sam |last4=Graham |first4=Euan |title=China Energy Transition Review 2025 |publisher=Ember |date=9 September 2025 |url=https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/09/China-Energy-Transition-Review-2025.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{yang2025china, author = {Yang, Muyi and Yang, Biqing and Butler-Sloss, Sam and Graham, Euan}, title = {{China Energy Transition Review 2025}}, institution = {Ember}, year = {2025}, month = sep, url = {https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/09/China-Energy-Transition-Review-2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }