China’s National Energy Administration recently released data showing that the country’s total electricity consumption reached a historic milestone in 2025, surpassing 10 trillion kilowatt-hours for the first time.
In global terms, this figure is striking: China’s annual electricity use is more than double that of the United States and exceeds the combined total consumption of the European Union, Russia, India, and Japan. The scale underscores China’s position as the world’s largest electricity consumer.
China has built the world’s most comprehensive and largest energy system, with total energy production accounting for more than one-fifth of the global total. Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the country’s energy self-sufficiency rate has remained above 80 percent, with over 90 percent of incremental energy demand met through domestic supply. Extensive ultra-high-voltage (UHV) transmission infrastructure allows China to transmit clean energy from resource-rich western and northern regions to major demand centers in the east and central regions, addressing longstanding regional imbalances. To date, China has completed 24 UHV direct-current transmission projects, providing west-to-east transmission capacity of 340 million kilowatts, with foreign media projecting continued expansion of UHV corridors through 2050.
Source: People’s Daily, February 5, 2026
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