China's National Energy Administration convened a symposium on August 27 to discuss a key proposal from the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on accelerating the large-scale development and utilization of tidal current energy.

The meeting stressed that the central government places high importance on high-quality marine economic development, providing a framework for advancing the scale development of tidal and other ocean energy sources. These energy forms are a key component of the marine economy, with significant implications for building a new energy system, fostering new quality productive forces in the marine sector and safeguarding national security and maritime rights.

China's ocean energy sector is in its early stage of rapid technological iteration and industrial-scale application. While conditions for scale development exist, the meeting acknowledged persistent challenges that require coordinated efforts across government, industry and research institutions to resolve.

Participants called for improved policy measures, cost reduction and efficiency gains to gradually build the industry into a "new calling card" for China's renewable energy sector. Priorities include strengthening collaboration across multiple stakeholders, intensifying research on core equipment and technologies, advancing key project construction and expanding "ocean energy plus" application scenarios to accelerate the sector's path toward scale development.