China’s 2026–2030 power system blueprint combines aggressive grid expansion, electrification and hydrogen integration, reshaping investment priorities while accelerating the commercialization of flexible low-carbon energy technologies.
On August 3, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and National Energy Administration (NEA) released the 15th Five-Year Plan for the New-Type Power System Development, outlining how the world’s largest electricity market intends to reshape its energy infrastructure by 2030.
Rather than serving as a roadmap for any single technology, the plan establishes an integrated framework that combines accelerated renewable energy deployment, expanded transmission capacity, large-scale energy storage, intelligent demand management, and deeper electrification across the economy. Together, these measures are designed to deliver a green, low-carbon power system while strengthening energy security.
The plan sets ambitious quantitative targets across renewable electricity, ultra-high-voltage (UHV) transmission, energy storage, EV charging infrastructure and hydrogen integration. It positions the power system, not individual technologies, as the central platform for decarbonization, creating substantial investment opportunities across grid infrastructure, charging networks, energy storage, and flexible hydrogen production.
Headline targets include increasing non-fossil electricity generation to 50% of total generation by 2030, commissioning more than 15 additional ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission corridors, expanding west-to-east electricity transmission capacity beyond 420 GW, and enabling the efficient integration of more than 2.8 TW of renewable energy.
Collectively, these targets indicate that China is moving beyond rapid renewable capacity expansion towards building an integrated electricity ecosystem capable of managing renewable intermittency at an unprecedented scale.
Grid infrastructure becomes the foundation
A defining feature of the plan is its emphasis on strengthening both physical and digital grid infrastructure.
Alongside continued development of large-scale wind and solar bases, including projects in China’s desert regions and offshore wind farms, the government plans to expand cross-provincial transmission corridors, reinforce regional transmission networks, modernize distribution grids and accelerate microgrid deployment.
The planned addition of more than 15 UHVDC transmission lines reinforces China’s long-standing strategy of using long-distance transmission to connect renewable resource bases in western China with demand centres along the eastern coast. UHVDC technology enables electricity to be transmitted efficiently over thousands of kilometres while reducing transmission losses compared with conventional alternating-current networks.
Expanded transmission capacity should improve utilization of geographically dispersed renewable resources by reducing curtailment and balancing regional supply and demand. At the same time, the plan recognizes that transmission alone cannot solve renewable intermittency, combining network expansion with flexible generation, energy storage and increasingly intelligent electricity demand.
Charging infrastructure and V2G: A new phase of growth
The plan substantially raises ambitions for EV charging infrastructure, creating one of the largest identifiable commercial opportunities within China’s clean energy sector.
By 2030, China aims to deploy more than 40 million charging facilities, including 300,000 high-power charging stations, providing charging capacity for more than 110 million electric vehicles.
China currently operates around 23 million charging facilities, implying demand for approximately 17 million additional chargers over the next four and a half years, equivalent to market growth of nearly 74%. Achieving the high-power charging target will also require around 120,000 additional fast and ultra-fast charging installations.
The policy focus extends beyond expanding charging capacity. Public charging operators are encouraged to increase the share of high-power chargers, particularly along expressways to support long-distance travel. Rural charging infrastructure and heavy-duty electric truck charging also receive dedicated policy support, favouring operators capable of integrating charging hardware with software-enabled energy management and achieving high asset utilization.
Beyond charging infrastructure, the plan seeks to transform EVs into active participants in the electricity system. By 2030, intelligent managed charging and bidirectional vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging are expected to reach commercial scale, with aggregated vehicle-grid interaction providing up to 50 GW of adjustable charging capacity.
Integrated through virtual power plants (VPPs), EV fleets will evolve from passive electricity consumers into distributed energy resources capable of providing peak shaving, frequency regulation and demand response. Together with broader targets for demand-side flexibility exceeding 5% of peak load and VPP dispatchable capacity surpassing 50 GW, the plan points to new revenue streams for charging operators beyond conventional electricity sales.
Storage and hydrogen broaden system flexibility
The plan broadens China’s approach to power system flexibility by combining electrochemical energy storage with hydrogen technologies.
Pumped hydro development will continue alongside rapid deployment of new-type energy storage systems. By 2030, new-type storage capacity is targeted to reach 300 GW, including 140 GW of independent grid-scale storage designed primarily for peak-load support, with average discharge durations approaching four hours.
Hydrogen assumes a broader role through the explicit promotion of “electricity–hydrogen synergy.” Rather than focusing solely on transport or industrial decarbonization, the plan positions hydrogen as an integral component of power system flexibility through five emerging commercial pathways:
- Green hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels: Large-scale production of green hydrogen, ammonia and methanol using surplus electricity from wind and solar bases, converting otherwise curtailed renewable power into transportable energy products.
- Zero-carbon industrial parks: Integration of renewable electricity, hydrogen production, storage and industrial demand into local energy ecosystems, enabling closed-loop “green power–green hydrogen–industrial application” value chains.
- Long-duration energy storage: Deployment of hydrogen storage and hydrogen-fired power generation to provide long-duration backup during extended periods of low wind and solar output, complementing lithium-ion battery storage.
- Coal power retrofits: Upgrading existing coal-fired power plants for hydrogen and ammonia co-firing, creating opportunities across fuel supply, combustion systems, emissions control, plant retrofits and operational safety technologies.
- Flexible hydrogen production: Adoption of flexible electrolyzers capable of adjusting production in response to renewable generation and electricity prices, allowing hydrogen projects to generate additional revenue through ancillary services, demand response and electricity market participation.
Commercial execution to determine success
China’s 15th FYP significantly expands opportunities for utilities, infrastructure developers, charging operators, equipment manufacturers and digital energy service providers. Yet commercial success will depend less on achieving headline capacity targets than on building integrated business models that connect generation, storage, transmission and demand.
For hydrogen developers, project economics will hinge on securing low-cost renewable electricity, maximizing electrolyzer utilization and developing reliable downstream demand. Charging operators will increasingly need to monetize grid services through managed charging and V2G capabilities, while storage providers must capture value across capacity, balancing and ancillary service markets.
More fundamentally, China’s electricity sector is evolving from a generation-centred engineering system into a digitally coordinated energy platform in which generation, storage, transmission, and consumption operate as an integrated whole. Rather than treating renewable power, charging infrastructure, storage and hydrogen as separate industries, the plan integrates them into a unified power system designed to maximize flexibility, resilience and carbon efficiency.
For investors and industrial participants, the defining opportunity over the next five years will extend beyond adding renewable capacity. The greater prize lies in identifying where these interconnected technologies can create commercially sustainable value chains within China’s increasingly intelligent electricity system.