Last year, China was the world’s top investor in renewable
energy, and the country has expressed even greater ambition for
2013. But before it can realize its planned additional 49
gigawatts (GW) of clean power, it needs to first lead its clean
energy industry out of the swamp of overproduction and low-end
manufacturing. China’s recent embrace of a set of revised
renewable energy policies might bring new hope for the
industry’s—and the country’s—ambitions. Controlling reckless
development In the last decade, in order to increase the share
of clean energy in the overall energy mix, the Chinese
government released a series of laws and subsidies to give the
industry a boost. While such efforts significantly ramped up
China’s clean energy equipment manufacturing and renewable
energy installations, they also led to reckless development that
caused severe overproduction and wasteful investment practices
and resource use. To address these issues, the government has
been taking regulatory and policy steps. In August