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Technological Innovation and Energy in China’s 14th Five Year Plan

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The National People’s Congress (NPC) approved the “Outline of the People’s Republic of China 14th Five-Year Plan (FYP) for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035” (outline), thereby providing China with a comprehensive blueprint to guide its overall economic, technological, and social development until 2025. This document includes a wide range of energy and climate targets, which largely reconfirm China’s commitment to peaking CO2 emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.

The outline primarily focuses on carbon intensity control while placing a secondary emphasis on total carbon emission control. This is most notably reflected in the inclusion of binding reduction targets of 18% and 13.5% for carbon and energy intensity, respectively, and the omission – for now – of a formal carbon emissions cap.

The outline moreover stipulates that the share of non-fossil fuel energy sources in the total energy mix should be increased to approximately 20%, thereby underlining the importance of China’s transition towards clean, low-carbon energy sources.

Key Energy Sources

China’s leadership unquestionably is confronted with a challenging task: maintain the country’s brisk pace of economic development while simultaneously pursuing a series of demanding decarbonisation targets to meet its ambitious carbon-neutrality goals.

In this context, the development of energy from non-fossil fuel sources receives ample support from the outline. After all, China’s power and industry sectors account for nearly 80% of its annual CO2 emissions. To support this energy transition, the outline therefore notably stipulates that China will “vigorously increase the scale of wind power and photovoltaic power generation, orderly develop offshore wind power, and accelerate the construction of the Southwest Hydropower Base.

These aspirations are in turn complemented by further calls to:

  • Develop and utilise geothermal energy
  • Improve the utilisation rate of ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission channels
  • Accelerate the intelligent transformation of grid infrastructure
  • Accelerate the construction of pumped storage power stations and the large-scale application of new energy storage technologies
  • Construct a “batch of multi-energy complementarity clean energy bases,” which generally integrate renewable power generation with new storage technologies.

The outline also stresses the need to improve China’s energy security. To achieve this, it introduced the country’s first binding target for domestic energy production, which is currently set to exceed 4.6 billion metric tons of standard coal equivalent by 2025. Although this comprises all forms of energy, coal will undoubtedly play a significant role in reaching this goal, as reflected by the inclusion of several references to the development of coal in the outline – albeit while underlining its clean and efficient use.

The Role of Science, Technology, and Innovation

The outline acknowledges the significant contributions that basic scientific research and technological innovation can make towards the successful realisation of China’s energy transition. For example, the outline announced an increase in the country’s research and development expenditure of more than seven percent annually – at least 8% of which will be spent on basic research.

In addition, the outline highlights China’s intention to advance its core manufacturing competencies, such as high-end new materials, smart manufacturing, and new energy vehicles. These also include several energy-related applications such as key nuclear power plant components, large liquefied natural gas ships, and deep-sea oil and gas production platforms. Finally, the outline lists two major national infrastructure priorities, which are relevant to the energy sector, namely, comprehensive research facilities for critical systems of fusion reactors and high-efficiency low-carbon gas turbine test equipment.

The outline of the 14th FYP already sets a strong signal that China will focus on limiting carbon and energy intensity while also strengthening its domestic energy supply and improve technological innovations. This implies that although there will be a clear push to increase the amount of energy generated from non-fossil fuel sources, coal will likely continue to figure strongly in China’s energy mix for the coming years as well.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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