China has started building the Ruitan demonstration project, which the publication says is set to become the world’s first plant to combine molten-salt thermal storage with a supercritical CO2 turbine. The facility is expected to begin operating next year.
The project is being developed in Shandong province at the site of the coal-fired Bajiao power station in Yantai. Its first phase includes a 50-MW supercritical unit and a 100-MW molten-salt energy storage system.
The concept is to absorb surplus power from the station during periods of low demand and store it as heat in molten salt. During peak hours, that heat would then be used to run a closed-loop turbine system using CO2 instead of the steam cycle employed by conventional power plants.
According to the source, supercritical CO2 systems offer several advantages: they are smaller than traditional units, do not require water, can deliver higher generation efficiency and produce fewer emissions. The article also notes that they are more flexible and quicker to adjust than standard power plants.
OilPrice places the project within the broader expansion of China’s clean energy technology sector. The article says Chinese companies accounted for about 5% of global clean-energy patent filings in 2000, but that share had risen to 75% by 2022.
It also says that between 2019 and 2025 China outspent the rest of the world combined on energy investing, contributing more than half of the global $1.1 trillion total. By comparison, the article puts U.S. clean energy investment at $236 billion.
The piece adds that the United States is moving to curb dependence on Chinese supply chains at the same time: the Trump administration recently ordered a ban on the use of Chinese-made batteries in utility-scale energy storage systems. In the author’s view, the Ruitan technology is not a direct rival to battery storage, but it illustrates the all-of-the-above approach China is using to strengthen its position in energy technology.
