BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) — In Sunjia Village of Yantai, in east China’s Shandong Province, communal life after sunset is now powered by every passing breeze and ray of sunshine.
As dusk falls, villager Xiao Yang follows his usual routine of gathering his friends for card games beneath streetlamps fitted with small wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. While they play, they charge their phones on the solar-powered bench they’re seated on, the gentle hum of clean energy quietly powering their evening.
From solar-powered trash bins with touchless disposal to photovoltaic restrooms that generate their own electricity, the coastal village has become a pioneer in China’s rural green transition, saving over 9,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.
The ongoing green revolution in China’s countryside offers fresh insights into the country’s climate commitment. The growing adoption of clean energy, particularly in rural areas, has opened up new possibilities for improving farmers’ quality of life.
“In the past, rural residents primarily relied on traditional fuels, which led to significant greenhouse gas emissions and poor living conditions. As a result, energy conservation and emission reduction in rural areas are crucial to the country’s green transition,” said Mei Xurong, a researcher at the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Mei added that China’s continued efforts to achieve a balanced development between the green transition in rural areas and the growth of the local economy and living standards represent a truly commendable practice.
As of the first half of 2025, the installed photovoltaic capacity for rural households across the country had reached nearly 180 million kilowatts, generating an annual income of 14 billion yuan (about 1.97 billion U.S. dollars) for farmers, data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) showed.
Additionally, a white paper released by the State Council Information Office showed that by the end of 2024, over 40 million rural households in northern China had completed clean heating upgrades, raising the clean heating rate to 83 percent — nearly 20 percentage points higher than in 2020.
Beyond these impressive figures, China’s emission-reduction efforts in rural areas have not only redefined daily life for farmers but also delivered tangible benefits to them.
In Xingsheng Village, Pingluo County, in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, 62-year-old farmer Zhou Xuelin moved last year from his soot-stained bungalow into a new home equipped with rooftop solar panels and an air-source heat pump.
This is part of a village-wide zero-carbon project that has helped residents transition away from coal, reduced their electricity bills, and even generated income by selling surplus power back to the grid. For Zhou, however, the most tangible change is that the days of coughing on soot from coal stoves during winter have finally become a thing of the past.
A similar story unfolds in Tudianzi, a village nestled deep in the mountains of Hubei Province, where photovoltaic panels now cover nearly every available surface, from rooftops and pavilions to chicken coops and pigsties.
For 75-year-old Hu De’an, the change is deeply personal. The smoke that once billowed from his chimney has vanished, replaced by neat rows of solar panels, freeing him from the relentless chore of stacking firewood each winter.
On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, that transformation takes on a literal new dimension. A massive solar energy base, covering several hundred square kilometers and boasting a capacity of tens of millions of kilowatts, has emerged on the once-degraded Talatan Gobi Desert.
In a remarkable symbiosis, the sea of solar panels provides shade that allows grass and bushes to flourish so vigorously that herders like Yehdor, 49, now graze their sheep beneath them to manage the vegetation. The stable pastures have freed them from many nomadic journeys and also helped curb the sandstorms once driven by land degradation.
Behind all the transformation lies a slew of national initiatives. A pivotal poverty alleviation project launched a decade ago spurred the large-scale installation of distributed photovoltaic systems and the construction of solar power stations across financially strained rural areas.
In 2022, a national action plan was released for agricultural and rural emission reduction and carbon sequestration, which included aims such as replacing conventional energies with renewables. The plan stressed the localized adoption of bioenergy, solar, wind, and geothermal power to expand the clean energy supply in rural communities.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) issued a guideline in January 2025 to accelerate the “comprehensive green transition” of agricultural development and promote “rural ecological revitalization.”
These visible gains and policy pledges in rural green transition underpin the cornerstone of China’s broader climate advancement. Five years after announcing its ambitious peak carbon and carbon neutrality goals in 2020, China has established the world’s largest renewable energy network and most complete renewables supply chain.
By the end of September this year, China’s installed renewable energy capacity had reached nearly 2.2 billion kilowatts, accounting for approximately 59.1 percent of the country’s total installed power capacity, according to the NEA.
The Economist, in its latest edition, highlighted China’s “clean-energy revolution,” noting that the country is providing “ever greater amounts of clean-energy capacity” to the world at prices “cheaper than any alternative,” with its solar power capacity alone nearly double the combined total of Europe and the United States.
China’s progress in the clean energy sector has also drawn global attention during the ongoing 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP30).
Brazilian Minister of Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva told Xinhua during the conference that China has made “a great contribution” in developing innovative green technologies and has supported the Global South in responding to climate change.
“China has made a great contribution, especially because it has been able to develop technologies that have lowered the cost of solar energy and wind power, and has made great contributions in the electric car field. Therefore, China’s contribution goes beyond what it is doing domestically,” she added.
As the year 2030 marks both the deadline for China to meet its carbon-peak pledge and the final year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the country will accelerate a comprehensive green transition in its economic and social development.
The green transition of the agricultural sector will play a more prominent role during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, said Chen Bangxun, a MARA official. ■
