Driven by global energy security and the “dual carbon” goals, the new energy industry is accelerating its shift from an “alternative energy source” to a “primary energy source”. Photovoltaics, wind power, energy storage and other sectors have achieved technological breakthroughs and scale expansion, with booming development in multiple regional markets. Relying on itswhole-industry-chain advantages and technological innovation capabilities, China is deeply involved in the coordinated development of global new energy, becoming a core force driving the global green energy transition and injecting sustained momentum into the world’s energy transformation.
According to the latest data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), global installed renewable energy power generation capacity hit a record high of 5,149 GW in 2025, with an annual increase of 692 GW, up 15.5% year-on-year, accounting for 85.6% of the world’s total newly installed power generation capacity. Renewable energy is just one step away from accounting for more than half of the global power mix. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that by 2030, low-emission energy sources such as solar-led renewables and nuclear power will rise to 50% of global electricity generation, an increase of 8 percentage points from 2025. The global energy structure is undergoing a historic restructuring, and new energy has become the absolute core engine of the global energy transition.
Global Markets Boom Across Regions, Forming a New Differentiated Development Pattern
At present, the global new energy market presents a differentiated development pattern of “Asia leading, emerging markets rising, and Europe and the US deepening cultivation”. Each region has achieved distinctive breakthroughs based on its own resource endowments and policy orientations.As the core hub of global new energy development, Asia added 513.3 GW of renewable energy capacity in 2025, accounting for 74.2% of the world’s total new additions, with China contributing the majority. By the end of 2025, China’s installed solar power capacity reached 1.20 billion kW, and wind power capacity 640 million kW. The total installed capacity of wind power, photovoltaics, nuclear power and hydropower accounted for about 60% of the total installed capacity, continuously consolidating its global leading position.
Emerging markets have become new engines of global new energy growth. The Middle East saw a 28.9% increase in renewable energy installed capacity in 2025, with Saudi Arabia leading the implementation of regional integrated photovoltaic and green hydrogen projects. Africa’s installed capacity rose by 15.9%, with Ethiopia, South Africa and Egypt as major growth poles. The Southeast Asian market continues to heat up: the first phase of the 1,000 MW photovoltaic project at the Laos Northern Clean Energy Base by CGN has been successfully put into operation, becoming the largest single PV project in Southeast Asia. After operation, it will generate an average annual power output of 1.65 billion kWh, equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.3 million tons, driving the coordinated industrial chain development of China and Laos.
Europe and the US focus on technological upgrading and localized layout. Europe continues to advance its energy transition plans, with its 2026 PV installation target raised by 30% from 2025, where distributed PV and offshore PV become key growth areas. Meanwhile, strict technical standards and carbon compliance requirements are driving the new energy industry toward high-end development. The North American market is accelerating the construction of clean energy infrastructure, focusing on long-duration energy storage and smart grids to ease power demand pressure from the rapid development of the AI industry. Tech giants such as Microsoft and Alphabet have increased clean energy procurement to help achieve net-zero goals.
Technological Iteration Achieves Multiple Breakthroughs, Driving Continuous Cost Reduction
Technological innovation is the core driving force for the sustainable development of the global new energy industry. At present, key breakthroughs have been made in photovoltaics, wind power, energy storage, green hydrogen and other fields, pushing down new energy costs and further enhancing market competitiveness.In the PV sector, the market share of N-type cells has exceeded 70%, perovskite cell efficiency has broken through 27.2% with greatly improved stability, and tandem cells have become the future technological direction. Since 2009, global PV module prices have dropped by a cumulative 90%, making solar power the cheapest form of electricity generation in most regions.
In wind power, the single capacity of offshore wind turbines has exceeded 20 MW, with efficiency increased by 30%. Floating wind farm technology unlocks deep-sea wind energy resources, promoting the expansion of wind power to far offshore areas. In energy storage, long-duration technologies such as vanadium redox flow batteries and compressed air energy storage have achieved large-scale commercial application, with energy storage of 4 hours and above becoming a global standard. China accounts for more than 60% of the world’s long-duration energy storage installed capacity, effectively solving the volatility and intermittence of new energy power generation and supporting stable grid operation.
Major progress has also been made in green hydrogen: its cost has dropped to about 14 yuan/kg, approaching the price of gray hydrogen. The localization rate of electrolyzers exceeds 90%, and the market size of industrial green hydrogen substitution has surpassed 200 billion yuan, becoming an important path for industrial decarbonization. In addition, technologies such as AI, big data and digital twins are deeply integrated with new energy, and intelligent operation and maintenance systems are widely used, greatly improving the operational efficiency of new energy projects and promoting the digital and intelligent transformation of the industry.
China Empowers the Whole Industry Chain and Leads Global Coordinated Development
As a global leader in the new energy industry, China has upgraded from product and technology exports to providing whole-industry-chain solutions, deeply participating in global new energy cooperation and offering a “Chinese approach” for countries’ energy transitions.In terms of product supply, China’s exports of core products such as PV modules, inverters and complete wind turbines have long ranked first in the world. In 2025, China’s newly installed PV capacity overseas reached 14.6 GW, with projects covering Brazil, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions across 18 countries and regions worldwide. Its product quality and technical level have been recognized by the global market.
In technological cooperation, Chinese enterprises actively carry out collaborative innovation with global research institutions and enterprises, participate in the formulation of global new energy industry standards, and promote the global application of cutting-edge technologies such as perovskite and long-duration energy storage. Meanwhile, through technical training and talent export, they help emerging markets improve their new energy technological capabilities. CGN launched the “Firefly Program” in Laos, training nearly 100 local engineers and launching public welfare projects, enabling local people to share development achievements and setting a model for localized cooperation of China’s new energy industry.
In terms of industrial chain coordination, China has built a complete new energy industrial chainfrom silicon material, silicon wafers and modules to Inverters and energy storage equipment, with significant cost and capacity advantages. The cost of China’s integrated modules is only 40% of that in the United States, effectively driving down global new energy costs. At the same time, Chinese enterprises are accelerating the layout of overseas production capacity, building module assembly plants and warehousing centers in Europe, Southeast Asia and other places to realize “local production and local delivery”. This not only circumvents trade barriers but also improves project delivery efficiency, deepening win-win development with global partners.
Future Outlook: Joining Hands to Build a New Global Green Energy System
The global new energy transition has entered an irreversible critical stage. Despite challenges such as grid bottlenecks, geopolitical impacts and unbalanced regional development, the industry’s long-term growth trend is clear. The IEA forecasts that by 2030, the world will generate more than 600 TWh of electricity from solar PV annually. PV power generation is expected to surpass wind and nuclear power in 2026 and hydropower in 2029, becoming the world’s largest source of electricity.
Industry experts note that the future global new energy industry will follow a trend of “technological integration, multi-energy complementarity and global coordination”. PV, wind power, energy storage and green hydrogen will be deeply integrated to form an integrated “wind-solar-storage-hydrogen-thermal” energy system. Regional cooperation will become closer, the growth potential of emerging markets will continue to unfold, and Europe and the US will keep promoting technological upgrading and compliance improvement.
China will continue to adopt an open and cooperative attitude, deepen capacity, technological and market cooperation in the global new energy sector, promote the sharing of new energy technologies and industrial chain coordination, and help the world achieve the “triple renewable energy installation target”. It will contribute “Chinese wisdom” and “Chinese strength” to global energy security, climate change governance and sustainable development, and join hands with countries around the world to build a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient new global energy system.
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