China's 15th Five-Year Plan (十五五) energy policy released; targets 200 trillion yuan energy investment and mandates private enterprise participation in grid expansion.
On June 26, the State Council Information Office held a press briefing to explain the "15th Five-Year Plan" for energy construction, released the previous day on June 25. The plan set the framework and parameters; the briefing provided concrete numbers and revealed policy details. The plan outlined 14 initiatives across six major systems, while the briefing translated those principles into striking figures.
Of 105 approved green electricity direct-connection projects, private enterprises account for half. Total energy investment under the 15th Five-Year Plan exceeds 20 trillion yuan, with new business models accounting for over 2 trillion yuan. Virtual power plants are projected to reach a capacity of 50 million kilowatts by 2030—equivalent to 50 large coal-free thermal power plants. In 2025, computing centers already consumed 1.6% of national electricity; by the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan, this is expected to reach approximately 6%.
While the plan stated "encourage diverse stakeholders to participate," the briefing disclosed that "private enterprises already account for half." While the plan called for "advancing computing-power and electricity coordination," the briefing provided concrete calculations. Within two days, energy transition's roadmap and implementation details were both laid bare.
In the plan's original language, "green electricity direct connection" appears under new energy infrastructure priorities: "advance green electricity direct-connection projects for computing centers and other emerging industries, and encourage industrial parks, zero-carbon parks, and incremental power distribution networks to expand multi-user green electricity direct-connection scenarios."
One day later at the press briefing, this statement was quantified: 105 approved projects, with private enterprises representing half. The plan opened the door; the briefing told the market that people are already squeezing through it—and half of those doing so are private enterprises.
Multi-user green electricity direct connection was a new policy announced only in May this year, with its core innovation being the expansion of power supply scope from a single user to multiple users.
Under the previous one-to-one model, a single renewable power station could only serve one customer. Given that generating assets have a lifespan of 20 to 25 years, any operational disruption to that single customer would put the entire investment return at risk. Wang Shujuan, an expert at the China Investment Association's Energy Investment Committee, stated plainly: "Generating assets typically have a lifespan of 20 to 25 years, and the operating conditions of a single electricity customer carry significant uncertainty."
The multi-user model allows one power station to simultaneously supply electricity to multiple enterprises in a park, dispersing risk and significantly improving return stability. Two projects in Jining, Shandong led the way—one developed by Century Green Energy to supply green power to a battery base, and another a joint venture between Shanghai Electric New Energy and Hexin Group serving an integrated degradable plastics project.
The divergence between purely private enterprise operations and state-enterprise-private enterprise joint ventures reflects how market participants capture policy dividends differently.
The plan is written, policy is implemented, projects are under construction. The chain from policy document to project is shortening. However, implementation details in most provinces remain pending. Local execution standards, grid connection rules, and pricing mechanisms are the variables that will determine whether private enterprises have sufficient confidence to invest real capital.
"Computing power" was incorporated into national-level energy planning as an independent keyword for the first time, mentioned no fewer than ten times during the briefing. Lin Boqiang, dean of the Institute of China Energy Policy at Xiamen University, concluded: "The significance of computing power entering the plan is no less than 'new energy entering the plan' was back then."
In fact, computing-power and electricity coordination is not a newly minted concept. In December 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments released implementation opinions on "the East Data Centers, West Computing Power initiative," first introducing this concept. The 2026 Government Work Report further incorporated it into new infrastructure engineering. By including it in the new energy system construction framework in this energy plan, the concept has elevated from an industry advocacy on the computing side to an institutional arrangement in the energy system.
The plan's framing of computing-power and electricity coordination is broad: "coordinate allocation of energy resources and computing facilities construction to advance integrated development of computing power and electricity." The briefing, however, provided concrete figures.
In 2025, national computing center electricity consumption totaled 170 billion kilowatt-hours, accounting for 1.6% of national electricity consumption. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, computing electricity consumption is projected to increase by more than 100 billion kilowatt-hours annually, reaching approximately 800 billion kilowatt-hours by 2030, representing approximately 6% of national electricity consumption. Over five years, moving from 1.6% to 6%—at this growth rate in any industry, electricity supply and demand dynamics would be fundamentally reshaped.
The plan provides a framework for regionally differentiated deployment: the West will coordinate planning and construction of computing hubs with large-scale new energy bases, while the East will advance coordinated planning of distributed computing with distributed power sources, microgrids, and virtual power plants.
Qingyang, Gansu was the first to verify this pathway works—aggregating dispersed wind and solar resources to directly supply the "East Data Centers, West Computing Power" industrial park. From January to May 2026, the park maintained electricity prices at or below 0.4 yuan per kilowatt-hour, with green power consumption accounting for 88% of the mix and saving resident enterprises over 13 million yuan in electricity costs.
Yet the plan also candidly acknowledged that computing-power and electricity coordination "still faces practical obstacles in planning, construction, and pricing mechanisms." Three conditions—wind and solar resources, policy support, and electricity market maturity—are each indispensable. Whether the Qingyang model can be replicated elsewhere depends on whether all three conditions can be met.
The briefing provided a categorization. CCTV broke down the 20 trillion yuan into three categories: first, energy security safeguards—oil, gas, coal, and supporting power plants, with investment growth of 10% or more compared to the 14th Five-Year Plan; second, green and low-carbon transformation, with new energy reaching approximately 60% of power generation investment and grid investment growth of 30% or more compared to the 14th Five-Year Plan; third, advancing new quality productive forces—green hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol, multi-user green electricity direct connection, new-form energy storage, virtual power plants, and computing-power and electricity coordination—with investment exceeding 2 trillion yuan.
Three categories, clear logic. Ones that safeguard the fundamentals, ones that drive transition, ones that incubate new business models—each in its proper place. What truly deserves attention is the third category: 2 trillion yuan represents only one-tenth of the 20 trillion yuan total; new business models remain "just beginning to show their potential."
The plan created space and outlined the track for them, but whether they can grow from "one-tenth" to "three-tenths" or "five-tenths" depends on whether the infrastructure in the first two categories can support them and whether market mechanisms can supply the necessary resources.
The plan's original wording stated "perfect long-term mechanisms for private enterprises' participation in major energy projects, encourage diverse stakeholders to participate in clean energy base, energy transmission and distribution networks, and oil and gas storage facility investment and construction." The language was cautious.
At the press briefing, however, Vice Director of the National Energy Administration Wan Jingsong explicitly stated: "On major energy projects, we will expand investment opportunities for private enterprises" and "issue guidance for private enterprise participation in large and medium-scale hydroelectric and other project investments." For major projects with stable returns—nuclear power, hydropower, oil and gas storage and transportation facilities—the government will evaluate, one by one, the feasibility of private enterprise participation. Currently, private enterprises already participate in 12 nuclear power projects, with equity stakes reaching as high as 20%.
From "encourage participation" to "expand opportunities," from "diverse stakeholders" to "evaluate feasibility one by one," the temperature shift is visible. Previously, private enterprises could only handle the periphery—distributed solar and user-side energy storage. If large and medium-scale hydroelectric and nuclear power—traditional state-enterprise territory—also open to private capital, that would represent a genuine shift in market structure.
The briefing also mentioned "concentrated remediation of bidding disorder, disorderly competition in the solar industry, and forced industrial bundling arrangements." These three phenomena are already well-known in the new energy sector; cleaning out these toxins would be far more effective than issuing a hundred supporting policies.
The plan set up the frame; the briefing lit the fire. Whether the figures—20 trillion yuan in total investment, 50 million kilowatts of virtual power plant capacity, 800 billion kilowatt-hours of computing electricity—translate into profits on private enterprise balance sheets depends on whether the electricity market can send clear price signals, whether local implementation can eliminate hidden barriers, and whether the relationship between state enterprises and private enterprises can shift from "dominant-subordinate" to "competition and cooperation."