China's geothermal industry has firmly maintained its position as the global leader in terms of scale, driven by the rapid expansion of heating applications and landmark resource discoveries that are paving a new path for clean energy development across the country.

The recently released China Geothermal Industry Development Report 2025 said the country's use of geothermal heating and cooling grew at an average annual rate of 6.5 percent during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2020-25) period.

By 2025, total coverage area had reached a staggering 1.65 billion square meters, it said.

Hou Qijun, chairman of China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec), the nation's largest geothermal development firm, emphasized that geothermal energy is a crucial pillar of the new energy industrial system.

Promoting the sector's high-quality development, Hou said, will make a greater contribution to safeguarding national energy security.

So far Sinopec has reached an industrial scale with an installed heating and cooling capacity of 137 million square meters, reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 6.7 million metric tons.

China has been making steady advances in deep geothermal exploration. In Dongying, Shandong province, researchers recently unlocked a natural underground boiling hot water storage at a depth of some 4,000 meters, marking a major milestone for the sector.

With a single-well output of 101.3 cubic meters per hour, it is the hottest hydrothermal geothermal well discovered to date in East China.

Reaching an exact depth of 4,002.17 meters, the well records a bottom-hole temperature of 162 C and produces water at 138 C at the wellhead.

Preliminary estimates indicate the well's stable thermal power at 21.57 megawatts, which is sufficient to meet the daily needs of nearly 10,000 residents if used for power generation, said Zhang Chengwei, director of the Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.

For industrial use, it could supply 94,000 tons of steam annually, replacing 18,800 tons of standard coal and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 48,900 tons.

After primary use for power or industry, the remaining geothermal water offers an ideal heat source for centralized urban heating, capable of serving nearly 2 million square meters of residential space.

This local innovation aligns perfectly with national forecasts. The industry report predicts that technological breakthroughs will continue to support geothermal power projects across China.

Over the next decade, the country is expected to maintain a 7 percent growth rate for geothermal heating and cooling, projected to reach a cumulative area of 3 billion square meters and an installed power generation capacity of 500 MW by 2035, it said.