On April 27, 2026, the National Energy Administration held a quarterly press conference. Pan Huimin, Deputy Director of the New Energy Department, released the latest data on the grid connected operation of renewable energy in the first quarter. At present, the low-carbon transformation of the domestic energy structure continues to accelerate, and the installed capacity of renewable energy maintains high-speed growth. The proportion of wind power and photovoltaic installed capacity is about to enter the ranks of half of the total installed capacity in the country, becoming the core support for power supply guarantee and dual carbon transformation.

Leapfrog growth in installed capacity

As of the end of March 2026, the total installed capacity of renewable energy in China has exceeded 2.395 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 22%, and its proportion in the total installed capacity of electricity in the country has risen to 60.4%. Among them, the development momentum of wind power and photovoltaic industry is particularly rapid, with a cumulative installed capacity of 1.898 billion kilowatts, accounting for 47.9% of the total installed capacity in the country, only one step away from occupying half of the electricity installed capacity. In terms of new installed capacity, the first quarter saw a total of 58.93 million kilowatts of renewable energy installed in China, accounting for 70% of the country's total new installed capacity, making it the main sector for expanding power installed capacity. In the segmented category, the newly installed capacity of photovoltaics reached 41.19 million kilowatts, ranking first in terms of incremental growth, with distributed photovoltaics becoming the main body of new additions; Wind power added 15.77 million kilowatts to the grid, with 75% of the new installed capacity concentrated in the Three North regions; At the same time, pumped storage and solar thermal power generation have added 1.15 million kilowatts and 200000 kilowatts respectively, presenting a diversified and coordinated development pattern in the new energy industry.

Electricity generation accounts for nearly 40% of the total

The rapid expansion of installed capacity has greatly improved the clean energy supply capacity. In the first quarter, the national renewable energy power generation reached 882.9 billion kilowatt hours, accounting for 37.1% of the total power generation in society. The scale of power generation can fully cover the total electricity consumption of the tertiary industry and urban and rural residents in the current period. Wind power and photovoltaics, as the core entities of clean energy, generated a total of 580.9 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in the first quarter, accounting for over 23% of the total electricity consumption in society. Among them, the wind power generation capacity is 304.7 billion kilowatt hours, and the photovoltaic power generation capacity is 275.9 billion kilowatt hours. In addition, biomass power generation and solar thermal power generation respectively produce 59.5 billion kilowatt hours and 350 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity, continuously providing stable power supply and empowerment for the power system.

The overall level of consumption is stable

Against the backdrop of rapid expansion of new energy, the overall trend of new energy consumption in China is stable and efficient. In the first quarter, the average utilization rate of wind power nationwide was 91.4%, and the utilization rate of photovoltaic power generation was 90.6%, maintaining a high level in the industry. Hydropower is affected by natural water conditions, with a cumulative power generation of 242.5 billion kilowatt hours and an average utilization hours of 596 hours for large-scale hydropower in the first quarter. At present, the installed capacity of wind power in China has exceeded 655 million kilowatts, and the installed capacity of photovoltaics has exceeded 1.241 billion kilowatts, promoting the comprehensive green and low-carbon reform of the domestic power system. With the iteration and upgrading of energy storage technology and the continuous optimization of power grid regulation capabilities, renewable energy will play a more important role as a backup guarantee in the new power system. Keywords: renewable energy, wind and solar power, energy transformation

The total installed capacity of 2.395 billion kilowatts and the proportion of wind and solar installed capacity of 47.9%, a series of impressive data, intuitively demonstrate the strong speed of China's energy transformation. Wind and solar new energy is about to occupy half of the electricity market, and the low-carbon nature of electricity consumption in the whole society continues to improve. Based on the large-scale construction of new energy bases such as Sanbei, a new type of power system with new energy as its core is accelerating its formation and comprehensive implementation.Editor/Gong Ziwei