The reporter noted that since the beginning of this year, under the overall situation of 'double carbon' work and steady growth, China's green investment has performed brilliantly, especially the new energy projects represented by photovoltaics have experienced explosive growth, and diversified investment and financing support has also pressed the 'fast forward button'. Industry insiders predict that the green investment in the '14th Five-Year Plan' period will release several trillion yuan of incremental space, which will provide considerable impetus for economic growth.

Green industry performance is bright

On May 28th, two million kilowatt pumped storage power stations in Meizhou and Yangjiang, Guangdong Province, which were built by China Southern Power Grid Corporation, were put into operation at the same time, with a total investment of about 15 billion yuan, which boosted the investment of upstream and downstream industrial chains by about 30 billion yuan and created about 74,000 jobs.

Since the beginning of this year, the planning and construction of large-scale wind power base and its supporting regulated power supply have been accelerated, and the photovoltaic investment performance has been bright. According to the data of the National Energy Administration, from January to April, the investment in power projects of major power generation enterprises in China was 117.3 billion yuan, up 5.1% year-on-year. Among them, the investment in solar power generation was 29 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 204.1%.

There will be more projects in the future: Huaneng Group expects the total investment of new energy projects started in the first half of the year to reach 90 billion yuan; The National Energy Group plans to invest 200 billion yuan this year, and strive to realize the start-up of 31 million kilowatts and the commissioning of 22 million kilowatts of electric power projects, of which the start-up of new energy exceeds 20 million kilowatts and the commissioning of 15 million kilowatts ...

Dong Wancheng, deputy director of the Development Planning Department of the National Energy Administration, said that this year, the first batch of large-scale wind power photovoltaic base projects in the desert Gobi desert area were accelerated, driving the planned investment in solar power generation and onshore wind power to increase by 202.6% and 13.3% year-on-year. Investment in pumped storage continues to improve, with the planned investment increasing by 31% year-on-year.

This is not an example. In 2022, the development of China's green industry accelerated, driving the green recovery at both ends of supply and demand, which became one of the important grips for steady growth.

Take the new energy vehicle industry as an example. From January to April, the domestic sales of new energy vehicles increased by 1.1 times year on year, and the market share reached 20.2%. Although the overall domestic auto market was hit hard by the epidemic in April, the sales of new energy vehicles still achieved a year-on-year increase of 44.6%, which also led to a substantial increase in the output value of upstream and downstream industrial chains.

Liu Xiangdong, deputy director of economic research department of China International Economic Exchange Center, said that the rapid development of green industry is the key to cultivate new development momentum and gain new competitive advantages in the future, and will become an important force to support economic growth. Digging into the development potential of green industry is conducive to enhancing the development potential, thus strongly supporting the high-quality economic development.

Diversified investment and financing 'fast forward'

In order to meet the demand of large-scale green projects, diversified financing support is accelerating. At the beginning of May, the People's Bank of China increased the refinancing quota by 100 billion yuan again. Up to now, the total amount of special refinancing loans to support clean and efficient utilization of coal has reached 300 billion yuan.

According to the latest financial data released by the People's Bank of China at the end of the first quarter of 2022, the balance of green loans in local and foreign currencies was 18.07 trillion yuan, up 38.6% year-on-year, and 5.6 percentage points higher than the end of the previous year. From the perspective of investment direction, the loan balance of infrastructure green upgrading industry, clean energy industry and energy conservation and environmental protection industry is 8.27 trillion yuan, 4.74 trillion yuan and 2.32 trillion yuan respectively, up by 31.3%, 39.3% and 58% respectively.

With the improvement of the green financial system, more innovative bonds have been issued. For example, China Merchants Bank recently issued the first green financial bonds in 2022, which is also the first time that commercial banks nationwide have issued green financial bonds with the theme of rural revitalization. All the funds raised will be used for the green industry projects in the county that will help strengthen the financial services for rural revitalization, especially clean energy projects such as wind power and photovoltaic.

Encourage green investment and financing, and accelerate deployment at the local level. On May 27th, Beijing Financial Supervision Bureau and other four departments jointly issued a document, proposing 'expanding investment in green areas', 'exploring the construction of a national green project database and an international green project database for the belt and road initiative, and improving the market-oriented green investment and financing credit enhancement mechanism'. On May 26th, 'Several Provisions on Green Finance Development in Pudong New Area of Shanghai (Draft)' was publicly solicited for comments, which mentioned that Pudong should explore differentiated investment and financing modes and strengthen the orderly investment of all kinds of funds by means of market.

'In the next step, efforts will be made to improve the top-level design of the green financial system and promote the green and low-carbon transformation of China's energy structure, industrial structure, production and lifestyle.' Chen Yulu, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said.

Huge incremental space will be opened

As an important field leading a new round of industrial transformation, the investment in green industry will continue to heat up during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. The Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Establishment and Improvement of the Green and Low-carbon Circular Development Economic System puts forward that the proportion of green industry will increase significantly by 2025.

At the local level, a series of medium and long-term planning and development goals are also defined. For example, Beijing made it clear that during the '14th Five-Year Plan' period, the proportion of high-quality energy increased to 98.5%, and the proportion of renewable energy in the whole society's energy consumption increased to 10.4%. Ten key projects will be carried out in Tianjin, including green low-carbon development project in the park, green manufacturing system construction project, ultra-low energy consumption building construction project, green data center demonstration project, coal combustion reduction and clean alternative project, etc.

A batch of hundreds of billions and trillions of green industrial clusters will also accelerate their rise. During the '14th Five-Year Plan' period, Henan plans to form an industrial scale of 200 billion yuan and accelerate the construction of a low-carbon and high-efficiency energy support system. Ningbo will invest nearly 400 billion yuan to build a number of large projects of new chemical materials, and strive for the output value of green petrochemical industry to exceed 1 trillion yuan and become a world-class green petrochemical industrial cluster.

According to the forecast of the Energy Foundation, during the '14th Five-Year Plan' period, the total investment in green investment fields, including the digital upgrading of traditional industries and the construction of renewable energy-friendly energy systems, will reach nearly 45 trillion yuan.

Dong Zhanfeng, deputy director of the Policy Institute of the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Environment, pointed out that with the current tightening of environmental supervision, investment in green industries is expected to continue to improve. He said that the '14th Five-Year Plan' is a crucial period to promote high-quality economic development and continuous improvement of ecological environment quality. It is expected that there will be more powerful market economy incentives at the follow-up policy level, such as financial subsidies and tax incentives for circular economy, cleaner production, low-carbon or zero-carbon industries.