Beijing aims to double China’s pumped storage hydropower generating capacity in five years and double it again by 2030, in a bid to provide most of the energy storage needed to make its ambitious renewable energy expansion programme viable.

The installed capacity will rise from 31.5 gigawatts (GW) at the end of last year to more than 62GW by 2025 and 120GW by 2030, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Thursday in a statement about the sector’s newly released 2021-2035 development plan.

“The plan aims to push forward rapid expansion of pumped storage power capacity, to meet the needs of large-scale new [and clean] energy projects development, so that they can make up a high proportion of future energy supply,” the NEA said. “This will help meet the nation’s carbon peaking and carbon-neutrality goals.”

To meet its twin goals of carbon emissions peaking before 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2060, China aims to almost triple its capacity to generate power from wind and the Sun to more than 1,200GW by 2030.

Guest post from South China Morning Post