China has significantly broadened its wind power development targets as it seeks to expand renewable energy adoption and advance its decarbonization goals.

At the China Wind Power conference in Beijing on Monday, government officials unveiled a bold target to more than double China’s current wind power capacity of 573 gigawatts to 1.3 terawatts by 2030.

The proposal includes establishing new wind turbines generating an additional 120 gigawatts per year, with offshore wind accounting for at least 15 gigawatts of the total during the 15th Five-Year Plan, covering the period between 2026 and 2030.

China’s long-term goal is to reach a wind power capacity of at least 2 terawatts by 2035 and 5 terawatts by 2060. The new benchmarks represent increases of more than 60% from China’s 2020 goals for the same years.

China’s wind power sector has surged ahead of expectations. Its cumulative installed capacity reached 520 gigawatts in 2024 — a 147.6% increase from 2019. Annual additions between 2020 and 2024 consistently topped 60 gigawatts, exceeding the yearly target of 50 gigawatts set in 2020.

Wind power has become a key driver of China’s clean energy transition. In recent years, the share of wind energy in the country’s total power generation has grown steadily, accounting for 15.7% of the country’s total installed power generation capacity this year, up from 10.4% in 2019.

Besides wind power, the country is expanding investment in solar, nuclear, and hydropower projects. The cumulative installed capacity of renewable energy made up a record high of more than half of the nation’s total last year, according to new data from China’s National Energy Administration.

To promote market-driven growth in renewable energy, the government introduced a policy in February allowing the price of on-grid electricity generated from renewables to be determined by market forces rather than authorities.

With the 15th Five-Year Plan marking China’s first use of fully market-oriented wind power development, Monday’s declaration called on authorities to create market mechanisms supporting high wind energy shares. It also urged strengthening the management of wind power and boosting large-scale wind farms, offshore wind, and rural wind projects.

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: VCG)