Green development boosts business growth

By the end of 2025, the park hopes to include 50 to 100 businesses involved in hydrogen energy and automobiles, which will form an industrial chain and reach an output value of more than 10 billion yuan.

Over the past few years, Chengdu has rolled out a series of policies for sectors such as photovoltaic, power batteries, new energy vehicles, hydrogen energy and energy storage to create a green and low-carbon industry with an output value worth 100 billion yuan. In June 2022, the city government issued a guideline on the development of green hydrogen energy, spurring establishment of a whole industrial chain.

With the development of hydrogen energy, the NEV sector sees great potential in Chengdu, and the city has encouraged the application of hydrogen energy vehicles with an industrial chain and the opening of several routes for hydrogen-powered buses.

NEV sales in Chengdu reached 74,100 units through the first five months of this year, up 20.5 percent from 2022, and the sales volume ranked fourth in all of China. And as of the end of May, Chengdu had built a total of 131,000 NEV charging piles.

In June, the Chengdu city government issued guidelines on the city's charging piles infrastructure construction as well as the industry development of NEVs and intelligent connected vehicles. According to the documents, by 2025 Chengdu will build up to 210,000 charging piles and more than 450 battery-swap stations. Additionally, it will achieve a total automotive industry scale of 300 billion yuan, with the local overall production of 1 million vehicles by 2025.

The number of NEVs is expected to reach 800,000 in terms of ownership and 250,000 in terms of production.

According to local officials, the path for Chengdu's NEV and ICV industries will focus on electrification, intelligence and hydrogenation, with its layout in sync with the established guidelines.

Along with industries, Chengdu has expanded its environmental footprint in overall city construction by putting sustainable and green development high on its list of priorities. For example, the design headquarters of China Southwest Architecture in the Tianfu New Area is the city's first fully eco-friendly building.

Chengdu's commitment to green development can be seen in its optimized industry, energy structure, green buildings, eco-friendly transport and livelihood.

Currently, the added value of core industries in the digital economy accounts for 13.4 percent of the city's GDP. Green building certification for a total construction area of 36.49 million square meters, and renovations for energy-saving in existing public buildings have been completed for an area covering 460,000 sq m, according to Yang Binping, chief engineer at the Chengdu bureau of ecology and environment.

"Under the dual-carbon goals, the western region, with its abundant clean energy resources, has become a fertile land for the development of new energy industries such as photovoltaic, wind power and electric vehicle batteries," said Tang Jiqiang, CEO of SWUFE Institution, a reputable think tank.

"The trend of the new energy industry developing and gathering in the western region is becoming increasingly evident. This is of significant importance to reshape the economic landscape of China and the world, and plays a crucial role in promoting high-quality development of the Chinese economy," Tang added.