Hu Senlin: Anchoring the Goal of Building an Energy Powerhouse and Generating Synergistic Momentum
Energy is a vital material foundation and a source of power for economic and social development. General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to energy work, emphasizing the need to "deeply promote the energy revolution; facilitate reforms in energy consumption, supply, technology, and systems; strengthen international cooperation; and accelerate the building of an energy powerhouse." The "Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development," adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee [1], explicitly defined the task of accelerating the construction of a new energy system, pointing out the direction and focus of China's future energy development. On the new journey of Chinese-path modernization, we must conform to the global trend of energy development, anchor ourselves to the goal of becoming an energy powerhouse, and use the construction of a new energy system as a focal point to vigorously promote the transformational development of China's energy sector.
The Realistic Logic of Building an Energy Powerhouse
Energy is the lifeblood of the national economy, and a strong, modern energy industry is an important foundation for a great modern socialist country. It can be said that without the modernization of energy, there would be no high-quality development of the economy, let alone the construction of a great modern power. Building an energy powerhouse is both a necessity for responding to changes in the international energy situation and an objective requirement for the green transformational development of society and the economy.
This is the general trend of global energy transition. Throughout the history of human development, every energy transition has brought about a great development of productive forces and profound changes in the international landscape. In the 18th century, the emergence of major inventions such as the steam engine made coal the primary fuel, driving the vigorous development of modern industries like textiles, steel, and machinery, making Britain the first industrialized nation. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, the invention and application of the internal combustion engine drove oil to gradually replace coal as the dominant energy source, giving birth to new industrial sectors such as energy, automobiles, and communications; the United States took the lead in achieving electrification, establishing its leading position in the world. Currently, human society is shifting from a fossil-fuel-based system to a new energy system characterized by multi-energy complementarity and system integration. In this process, the global energy structure is accelerating its adjustment, and clean energy is developing rapidly. The process of China's energy revolution resonates in frequency with the global energy transition. Only by seizing historical opportunities and promoting the transformation of the energy system can we grasp the initiative for development amidst profound changes in the international landscape.
This is a vital support for promoting high-quality economic and social development. The energy industry is massive in scale, playing a critical role in fixed-asset investment, contributions to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and employment absorption, constituting a vital link in the national economy. New energy industries—represented by photovoltaics, wind power, energy storage, hydrogen energy, and smart grids—have already become strategic emerging industries and important growth poles for the economy. Energy is the "grain" of industry and the engine driving industrial upgrading; the quantity, quality, structure, and cost of its supply directly determine the innovative capacity, competitiveness, and sustainable development capacity of industries. Energy transition is linked to industrial transformation and even the transformation of the mode of economic and social development. Therefore, only by accelerating the energy transition and comprehensively building a new energy system that is clean, low-carbon, secure, and efficient can we inject strong and lasting momentum into high-quality economic and social development.
This is a key measure for achieving the "Dual Carbon" goals [2] as scheduled. Achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality is a major strategic decision made by the Party Central Committee, and an inevitable choice for focusing on solving prominent resource and environmental constraints and achieving the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. Energy activities are currently the primary source of carbon emissions. The emission reduction process in the energy industry directly affects the overall process of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Transitioning from a traditional high-carbon energy system to a clean, low-carbon new energy system is the most important and effective path to achieving carbon reduction. To ensure the "Dual Carbon" goals are met on schedule, we must—under the premise of ensuring energy security—vigorously implement renewable energy substitution actions, promoting the cleaning of fossil fuels, the scaling of clean energy, the integration of diverse energy sources, and the digital-intelligent transformation of energy production and marketing, leading systemic economic and social changes through green and low-carbon energy development.
Building an Energy Powerhouse: A Long and Arduous Task
Our Party has always attached great importance to the development of the energy cause. Especially since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, China's energy sector has made breakthrough progress and historical achievements.
From a quantitative perspective, by 2024, total energy production reached approximately 5 billion tons of standard coal, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption rose to 19.8%, and market-traded electricity accounted for more than 60% of total social electricity consumption. China has become the world's largest energy producer and consumer. From a qualitative perspective, China's energy supply system has become more complete, the energy consumption structure continues to optimize, energy utilization efficiency is constantly improving, and new technologies, models, and business forms are flourishing. The construction of the energy market has become more standardized and orderly. It can be said that China has become a veritable major energy country and possesses the foundation to advance toward becoming an energy powerhouse.
It must be recognized that building an energy powerhouse is a systematic project covering dimensions such as supply security, technological strength, energy structure, and governance capacity. We cannot focus solely on indicators like energy production and consumption; we must exert effort across multiple dimensions. In terms of ensuring supply security, we must establish an independent, controllable, elastic, and resilient energy production-supply-storage-marketing system to ensure a continuous and stable supply of energy. Regarding the lead of technological innovation, we must achieve self-reliance and self-strengthening in energy technology and achieve breakthroughs in key technological equipment, pushing industry toward the high-end, intelligent, and green tiers. In terms of green and low-carbon transition, we must promote a fundamental change in production methods, optimization of the energy structure, and industrial transformation and upgrading, coordinately promoting carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion, and growth. Regarding the construction of systems and mechanisms, we must establish an energy market system with diverse subjects, unified openness, orderly competition, and effective regulation, continuously enhancing energy governance capacity and effectiveness. It must be said that China still has many shortcomings and weak links in these areas, and there is significant room for improvement; building an energy powerhouse is a long and arduous task.
Accelerating the Construction of a New Energy System
Currently, China's energy development is in a critical period of transition and change, facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges. We must accurately grasp the new situation and new requirements, accelerate the construction of a new energy system, and promote a leap in the quality and efficiency of energy development, laying a solid foundation for becoming an energy powerhouse.
Strengthen energy supply guarantee capabilities. At present and for a period to come, the basic national condition of China's large population will not change. The simultaneous development of new-type industrialization, Informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization means that total energy consumption will continue to grow. Coupled with factors such as a high degree of external dependence on oil and gas resources and rising uncertainty in the international situation, we must balance energy development and security, treating security as the prerequisite for development. To ensure a secure and stable energy supply, we must persist in basing ourselves domestically, mending shortcomings, diversifying guarantees, and strengthening reserves, building an all-round, multi-level energy supply, security, and emergency system. We must consolidate the "bottom-holding" [3] guarantee role of coal and comprehensively strengthen the clean and efficient utilization of the entire coal chain. We must make every effort to promote the increase of oil and gas reserves and production, advance the construction of oil and gas storage capacity, focus on deep-water, deep-layer, low-grade, and unconventional oil and gas resources, increase investment in exploration and development, strive to break through technological bottlenecks, and enhance the ability to respond to international market fluctuations. We must vigorously increase the scale of non-fossil energy supply, promote the high-quality construction of large-scale wind and solar power bases with a focus on "sand, desert, and Gobi" [4] areas, and facilitate the intensive layout and cluster development of offshore wind power bases. We must accelerate the construction of a new-type power system, strengthen the coordination of "source-grid-load-storage" [5], and comprehensively enhance the power grid's resource allocation and intelligent regulation capabilities to support the high-proportion, reliable consumption of new energy. We must deepen international energy cooperation, expand diversified import channels, and continuously enhance overseas resource supply capabilities.
Seize the commanding heights of energy technological innovation. Under the wave of the new technological revolution, world energy technology has made enormous progress, providing feasibility for improving energy efficiency and optimizing costs. Building a new energy system and continuously increasing the proportion of new energy supply is inseparable from the research, development, and application of frontier energy technologies. To further leverage the leading role of energy technological innovation, we must accelerate the construction of a complete innovation ecosystem from basic research to industrial application. We must strengthen innovation in common technologies and disruptive technologies, carry out major technological projects, and concentrate forces to break through "chokepoint" [6] links in fields such as oil and gas, wind power, photovoltaics, energy storage, and hydrogen energy. We must strengthen the synergy between national strategic technological forces and enterprises, reinforce the dominant position of enterprises in technological innovation, encourage leading enterprises to take the lead in forming innovation consortiums, establish common technology R&D platforms, and promote the deep integration of industry, academia, and research. We must promote the empowerment of energy development through digital-intelligent technology, deepening the application of artificial intelligence, big data, and digital twins across the entire chain—including energy planning, grid dispatching, fault prediction, and intelligent maintenance—achieving the optimization and upgrading of the entire energy industrial chain.
Promote the green and low-carbon transition of energy. Clean and low-carbon are the prominent features of the new energy system. Promoting green and low-carbon transition is an important starting point for breaking environmental and resource constraints and achieving high-quality energy development. We must coordinate the development of new energy with the layout of key industries, continue to optimize the energy structure, vigorously develop non-fossil energy, increase the proportion of clean energy supply, and implement renewable energy substitution actions, ensuring that by the end of the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan period, the vast majority of new electricity demand is met by the increment in clean energy power generation. We must promote energy-saving transformation and low-carbon transition in key industries, accelerate the promotion of advanced energy-saving technologies and equipment, elevate the energy efficiency standards of terminal power equipment, and phase out backward production capacity in accordance with laws and regulations. We must improve carbon emission management systems, coordinately establish an evaluation and assessment indicator system focusing on total carbon emissions and intensity, incorporating indicators such as energy structure, energy consumption intensity, and resource utilization efficiency to drive the energy transition process. We must actively carry out green life creation actions, comprehensively popularize energy-saving concepts and knowledge, promote a continuous increase in conservation awareness among the entire people, and guide the whole of society to form green and low-carbon energy consumption habits.
Improve energy governance systems and mechanisms. The construction of a new energy system cannot succeed without institutional guarantees. Only by codifying national energy strategies and major decision-making deployments into law and systems, and by continuously improving the modernization of the energy governance system and governance capacity, can we lay a solid institutional foundation for building an energy powerhouse. We need to improve the system of energy laws and regulations, strengthen the coordination and matching between rules, innovate regulatory means such as big data, and enhance the effectiveness of energy market supervision. We must further improve the construction of a unified national energy market, deepen the reform of the power system, optimize power market transaction rules and price mechanisms, and achieve the prioritized allocation of power resources on a national scale. We must steadily advance the reform of the oil and gas system and continuously improve the mechanism for fair access to the pipeline network. We must increase policy support, improve fiscal and taxation policies that promote green and low-carbon energy development, innovate green financial tools, and guide social capital into energy technological innovation. We must participate deeply in global energy governance, make full use of platforms such as the Belt and Road Initiative, promote green energy cooperation and the export of technical standards, and lead the transformation of the global energy system.