Supporting materials
Methodology
Chapter 1
Data is gathered primarily from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the National Energy Administration (NEA), the China Electricity Council (CEC), as well as international sources such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Ember. Certain datasets are not available for 2024; in these cases, the most recent year available has been used. In some cases more up to date monthly data is available. Ember’s monthly China electricity data is based on NBS and NEA data, with some processing; see our methodology for details.
Province generation data from the CEC is available up to 2022; data for 2024 is estimated. Hydro, thermal and nuclear generation are taken from NBS. Wind generation is taken from NBS and adjusted to match historical province data from the CEC. Solar generation is estimated based on province-level installed capacity from the NEA, solar insolation and temperature data from ERA5, utility-scale solar farm location data from GEM, population density data from NASA, and province level curtailment data from CWEA. It is adjusted to match historical province data from the CEC. Wind, solar and hydro generation are also adjusted to match national total generation in 2024.
Chapter 2
This chapter adopts a qualitative approach to examine the underlying rationales for China’s clean energy transition, drawing on insights from leading scholars with a deep understanding of the country’s evolving energy landscape. These insights were gathered through semi-structured interviews conducted in June 2025. To reinforce the analysis, the interview findings are triangulated with a review of relevant literature, policy documents, and recent regulatory developments. Together, this combination of expert perspectives and documentary evidence provides a nuanced understanding of the deeper logics and motivations driving China’s clean energy transition.
Chapter 3
The calculation of the share of emerging markets that have leapfrogged the United States includes emerging markets across four key regions: South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This analysis excludes the Middle East and Central Asia, as these regions exhibit higher per capita energy consumption than Europe, which would skew the leapfrogging assessment.
Solar generation and electrification calculations are based on 2023 data, representing the most comprehensive and recent data available. Final energy consumption data is sourced from the International Energy Agency (IEA), while electricity generation data is obtained from Ember. The share of developing countries that have leapfrogged is calculated as a share of developing countries’ final energy demand (for electrification) and electricity demand (for solar).
Export data for Chinese batteries and solar equipment were sourced from China’s customs statistics portal. Further information on solar export methodology is available at Ember’s China’s Solar PV Export Explorer. Patent data were drawn from IRENA’s INSPIRE database, which covers clean energy patents and enabling technologies for the energy transition. Note that patent data for recent years may be subject to partial underestimation due to time lags in data collection and processing.
Solar installation and manufacturing capacity analyses utilised historical data from the IEA and forward-looking projections from Infolink. Annual installation requirements under the IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario and Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario were calculated assuming linear growth between 2025 estimates and 2030 scenario targets.
Acknowledgement
Contributors
We gratefully acknowledge the International Society for Energy Transition Studies (ISETS) as a key partner in the preparation of this report. ISETS contributed significantly by facilitating expert consultations, coordinating peer review, providing editorial support, and actively promoting the report to wider audiences. We also extend our thanks to our external reviewers — including experts engaged in the consultation process, as well as Prof. Xunpeng Shi, President of ISETS and Research Principal at the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) — whose valuable feedback helped to strengthen the quality and clarity of this report. Any errors, omissions, or interpretations of expert insights remain solely our responsibility.
We would also like to thank our Ember colleagues who contributed to the production of this report: Hannah Broadbent, Debabrata Das, and Shiyao Zhang for their strategic communications input; Ardhi Arsala Rahmani for his support on digital production; and Chelsea Bruce-Lockhart, Lauren Orso, and Reynaldo Dizon for their work on data visualisation. We are also grateful to Kingsmill Bond and Elisabeth Cremona for reviewing the report, and to Matt Ewen for his support with data collection and analysis.
