Photo taken on Oct. 4, 2021 shows an aerial view of a fish-light complementary photovoltaic
power generation project in Digang village, Nanxun district, Huzhou city, east China’s Zhejiang
province. (Photo by Zhou Hongfeng/People’s Daily Online)
China is making great efforts to coordinate development and carbon emission reduction and
balance economic growth and environmental protection, trying to turn the tremendous challenges
of promoting green and low-carbon development into opportunities by fully leveraging sci-tech
innovation, a key variable in the rapidly changing world.
The country is faced with a tight schedule, heavy tasks, and great pressure in promoting the
transition to green and low-carbon development as it aims to peak carbon dioxide emissions
before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, which means that it only has 30 years to
move from peaking carbon dioxide emissions to achieving carbon neutrality, much less than the
time developed countries took to reach the goal.
Since east China’s Zhejiang province doesn’t have much of an advantage of such energy resources
as sunshine duration, some enterprises in the province have taken the lead in exploring innovative
development models including photovoltaic (PV) agriculture project, fish-light complementary PV
power generation project, project allowing multiple energy sources to complement each
other, industrial and commercial rooftop PV project, household PV project, as well as integrated
energy services.
The PV power generation project built in the shoals of Yueqing, Wenzhou city, Zhejiang province,
by CHINT, a smart energy solutions provider in China, not only produces 180 million kWh of
electricity a year, which is equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 134,000 tons per
year, but has also achieved success in planting sea rice under PV panels and in saline-alkali soil
and growing agricultural products like wild rice shoot and lotus root on a trial basis.
With an average annual power generation capacity of nearly 400,000 kWh, a rooftop PV power
generation system of the company can save more than 270,000 yuan ($41,850) in electricity costs
for CHINT IoT and Sensors Industrial Park in Yueqing.
A smart energy management cloud platform, another example of new application scenarios of
science and technology in the industrial park, helps monitor energy equipment and energy
consumption in real time and makes power grid smarter and electricity more valuable through the
use of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and other technologies.
As an industry insider pointed out, new energy resources are bringing to the world unexpected
changes driven by continuous sci-tech innovation.
As direct participants of market activities, enterprises have gained keen insight into market
demand. At the 2nd International Industrial and Energy Internet Innovation and Development
Conference held in Wenzhou in July this year, carbon peak and carbon neutrality became hot
topics that attracted great attention from attendees at the conference.
In fact, more and more companies have reaped fruits and found business opportunities in
promoting green and smart manufacturing, as well as industrial digitalization.
Through launching programs to remodel the traditional manufacturing industry and facilitate
industrial digitalization, as well as other endeavors, Wenzhou has further integrated AI into its
manufacturing industry and gathered a good number of outstanding enterprises and major projects
in emerging industries including PV, wind power, and energy storage.
Facts have proven that by intensifying efforts to stimulate the endogenous power of enterprises for
sci-tech innovation and help them truly grow into capable innovators, cities can better promote
breakthroughs in key technologies concerning green and low-carbon development and advance the
transition of production modes for energy conservation and carbon reduction.
China’s carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals signify profound changes in the patterns of both
development and governance. In the process of realizing the goals, governments at various levels
across the country have also brought into full play their roles in guiding and boosting market
activities. By innovating systems and ensuring policy support and improving incentive, guidance,
supervision and evaluation mechanisms, they have effectively driven green, low-carbon, and high-
quality development.
The government of Yueqing, for instance, has offered more favorable and differentiated policies in
such aspects as finance, taxation, and the use of land to enterprises that have performed well in
energy conservation and carbon reduction based on their “energy bills” including energy
consumption per unit of value added, carbon emissions per unit of output value, and the
proportion of clean energy in their energy mix.
In this way, the city has guided and motivated enterprises to make innovations and tap their
potential for digital transformation and low-carbon development.
As the country quickens its steps toward energy conservation and carbon emission reduction, a
good number of strategic emerging industries will benefit from relevant endeavors and enjoy fast
growth and the traditional manufacturing industry is also embracing huge development
opportunities for its green and digital transformation, according to analysis.
By leveraging the key variable of sci-tech innovation well, seizing new opportunities, and creating
new economic growth points, the country is expected to achieve the “maximum increment” in the
pursuit of high-quality development.
