China leads in hydropower capacity for 17 years

The aerial view of Nam Ou River Cascade Hydropower Project taken on July 13. (Photo/Xinhua)

China's installed hydropower capacity has been on top of the world for 17 consecutive years, according to a press release by the China Society for Hydropower Engineering.

By the end of June, China's installed capacity for renewable energy had exceeded 1.1 billion kilowatts, including 360 million kilowatts for regular hydropower, 40 million kilowatts for pumped storage, 340 million kilowatts for wind power and 340 million kilowatts for solar power.

In addition to construction of regular hydropower projects, a batch of pumped-storage hydroelectricity plants have also been put into operation, to realize the country's ambition of achieving carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

According to Zhang Ye, chairman of the China Society for Hydropower Engineering, China has come up with a renewable energy science and technology innovation system with the one in solar power, hydropower and wind power ranking on top of the world.

In 2021 alone, the country's renewable energy utilization scale was equivalent to reducing 753 million metric tons of standard coal.