An impressive vista of the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone. [Photo/WeChat account: hefeigaoxinfabu]

As one of the first national trials of coordinated innovation in pollution and carbon reduction, the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone has explored a development path that combines green transformation with quality and efficiency improvement.

Occupying 1.7% of Hefei's total land area, the zone contributed to 11% of the city's total GDP and 25% of its total tax revenue in 2024. The emission of major pollutants in the zone continued to decline last year, and the carbon credit system for local enterprises, the first of its kind in the country, has been selected as a provincial model case.

In the field of renewable energy, the total installed capacity of distributed photovoltaic power generation in the zone exceeded 200 MW, and the installed capacity of new energy storage projects surpassed 135 MW. The newly installed semiconductor street lamps helped to reduce electricity use over 40%, or about 7 million yuan ($971,859) in electricity bills. 

Through equipment renewal and clean production audits, the zone helped 26 enterprises to complete 37 upgrading and transformation projects with a total investment of 166 million yuan. It formulated 85 clean production plans for 31 enterprises, which is expected to save 32.41 million kWh of electricity and contribute a revenue of 34.1 million yuan annually.

In 2024, two local factories became national green factories, and five others provincial green factories. 

The proportion of strategic emerging industries such as quantum information, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data security, and life and health in the zone increased from 28% in 2016 to more than 60% at present. The number of national high-tech enterprises exceeded 3,000.

Hefei High-tech International Environmental Protection Science and Technology Park, inaugurated in the zone in 2021, has now gathered 373 enterprises with an annual output of over 40 billion yuan.