[Chinese Mainland] The 15th Five-Year Plan for Urban Renewal Enters Local Implementation Phase: 25 million m³/d of New and Upgraded Wastewater Treatment Capacity, About 100,000 km of Sewage Pipelines; Fujian to Build, Renovate, and Expand 28 Wastewater Tr

As China's first national-level special plan in the field of urban renewal, the "Urban Renewal 15th Five-Year Plan" lists the "Sewage and Garbage Collection and Treatment Facility Construction Project" and the "Municipal Infrastructure Upgrade Project" among the 15 major key projects, specifying the construction and renovation of sewage treatment facilities with a total capacity of 2500万 m³/d and the construction and renovation of approximately 17.5万 km of drainage pipelines (including approximately 10万 km of sewage pipelines). Provinces such as Fujian and Sichuan have successively announced their "15th Five-Year" urban renewal targets and are exploring "plant-network integration" professional operation and maintenance as well as performance-based payment.

As the "14th Five-Year Plan" draws to a close, China's urban sewage treatment rate has exceeded 98%, the total length of urban sewage pipelines has surpassed 103万 km, sewage treatment facilities in prefecture-level cities and county seats' main urban areas have basically achieved full coverage, and some regions even have surplus capacity, with plans for new sewage treatment plants being significantly reduced. Against this backdrop, a realistic question confronts the industry: where will incremental space come from?

The "Urban Renewal 15th Five-Year Plan" released in 5月 this year provides the answer — stock renewal and renovation. This is China's first national-level special plan in the field of urban renewal and the most certain source of demand for the sewage treatment industry during the "15th Five-Year" period.

Water Sector Coordinates Within the 15 Major Key Projects

The "Urban Renewal 15th Five-Year Plan" lists both the "Sewage and Garbage Collection and Treatment Facility Construction Project" and the "Municipal Infrastructure Upgrade Project" among the 15 major key projects, and provides quantitative targets:

• Sewage treatment facilities — new construction and renovation with a total capacity of 2500万 m³/d;
• Drainage pipelines — construction and renovation of approximately 17.5万 km;
• Water supply pipelines — construction and renovation of approximately 17.5万 km;
• Sewage pipelines — construction and renovation of approximately 10万 km.

These four figures need to be read together. The scale of 2500 万 m³/d for sewage treatment facilities may appear considerable, but what is more critical is 17.5万 km of drainage pipelines and 10万 km of sewage pipelines — the magnitude of pipeline renovation mileage far exceeds plant and station construction. This conveys a clear policy shift: the long-standing pattern of "emphasizing sewage plant construction while neglecting pipeline supporting facilities" must be thoroughly reversed.

The plan's "promoting the establishment of a long-term mechanism for plant-network coordinated construction and operation and maintenance" is explicitly identified as the top priority among priorities. The significance of this statement lies in bringing "plants" and "networks" from two separately invested and separately assessed systems into the same responsible entity and the same set of assessment indicators.

From "Building Plants" to "Building Networks": The Evaluation System Is Changing

Why will pipelines become the protagonist? The reason is not complicated.

Although China's urban sewage treatment rate has exceeded 98%, there remains a significant gap between the sewage centralized collection rate and the treatment rate. A large number of already-built sewage treatment plants have long faced the problem of low influent concentration — pipeline damage, misconnections and cross-connections, and lack of rainwater-sewage separation cause large amounts of extraneous water (groundwater, river water, rainwater) to occupy pipeline and treatment capacity, leaving sewage plants "using a big horse to pull a small cart," with high energy and chemical consumption, while actual domestic sewage cannot be collected.

Therefore, the task list during the "15th Five-Year" period is fundamentally different from that of the "14th Five-Year":

• "14th Five-Year" — mainly new plant and station construction, addressing the question of "whether it exists";
• "15th Five-Year" — mainly pipeline renovation, plant-network coordination, and quality and efficiency improvement, addressing the question of "whether it works well."

For industry enterprises, this means the core capability must shift from "engineering construction" to "pipeline diagnosis + refined operation and maintenance + data-driven assessment." Whoever can prove they have raised influent concentration and squeezed out extraneous water will be able to obtain returns under the performance-based payment mechanism.

Local Implementation: Two Sets of Figures from Fujian and Sichuan

Under the guidance of the national plan, local "15th Five-Year" urban renewal plans have been intensively implemented recently. Among them, the plans of Fujian and Sichuan are quite representative.

### Fujian: 28 Sewage Plants + 2500 km of Pipelines + Performance-Based Payment

Fujian Province will accelerate the renewal of water supply and sewage facilities, with plans to newly build, renovate, and expand 28 wastewater treatment plants, with a total new and upgraded capacity of 110万 m³/d; create 10 model areas with full coverage of urban sewage pipe networks, and newly build and renovate 2500 kilometers of sewage pipe networks.

More noteworthy is the mechanism design: Fujian proposes exploring the "plant-network integration" professional operation and maintenance and performance-based payment models in Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou and other places, and formulating technical routes for wet-weather overflow pollution control in urban drainage systems according to local conditions, while improving relevant policies and standards.

The combination of "plant-network integration + performance-based payment" is essentially answering a long-standing difficult question: who pays for pipe network renovation investment, and who is responsible for the results. Handing both the plant and the network to the same entity for operation and paying by performance can avoid the back-and-forth blame of "the plant blaming the network, and the network blaming the plant," and also gives pipe network renovation investment a quantifiable return path.

### Sichuan: 100 wastewater plants + emerging pollutants

Sichuan Province plans to newly build and renovate 100 wastewater treatment plants. While promoting the renewal of existing wastewater treatment facilities and equipment, Sichuan particularly proposes to encourage enhancement of the removal capacity for emerging pollutants such as antibiotics and microplastics, promote harmless disposal and resource utilization of sludge, promote "plant-network integration" professional operation and maintenance, and improve reclaimed water utilization facilities according to local conditions.

Writing "emerging pollutants such as antibiotics and microplastics" into a provincial-level urban renewal plan is a noteworthy signal. Conventional wastewater treatment processes have limited removal capacity for such trace pollutants. To respond to this direction, the proportion of advanced treatment units (ozonation, activated carbon adsorption, membrane separation, etc.) will increase, and the operating cost structure will also change accordingly.

How large is the incremental space: three judgments

Integrating national plans and local programs, the medium- and long-term growth space opened up for the wastewater treatment industry by urban renewal during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period can be understood from three dimensions.

• Scale dimension — the new and upgraded capacity of 2500万 m³/d corresponds to demand for equipment renewal, process upgrading, and expansion; 10万 kilometers of sewage pipe networks correspond to a huge market for inspection, repair, trenchless replacement, and intelligent monitoring equipment.
• Structural dimension — the priority of sewage pipe network renovation is higher than that of new plant and station construction. The technical service chain of "pipe network diagnosis—defect repair—intelligent monitoring—effect evaluation" will become a new growth pole.
• Model dimension — after "plant-network integration" and "performance-based payment" move from pilot projects to institutionalization, operational capability rather than engineering scale will become the core indicator in bidding evaluation, and enterprises with full-cycle operation and maintenance capabilities will gain obvious advantages.

One background also needs to be recognized: as demand for engineering construction gradually peaks, urban renewal will become an important starting point for a new round of growth in the environmental protection water treatment industry. Professional operation of existing assets is replacing new construction projects as the industry's main track.

What it means for us: TIANYI TECH's judgment

TIANYI TECH has long served municipal and industrial park wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse customers. Facing the policy window of urban renewal during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, we recommend that customers focus on three points: first, place pipe network inspection and external water intrusion diagnosis before upgrading and renovation, and first clarify the real influent concentration and collection rate to avoid the situation where "the plant has been renovated but the concentration still cannot rise"; second, design according to the operating logic of "plant-network integration" at the scheme stage, reserve online monitoring and data interfaces for water quality and quantity, and provide a verifiable metering basis for performance-based payment; third, simultaneously assess the configuration needs for emerging pollutant removal and reclaimed water utilization, so that one renovation can meet the triple goals of compliance, energy saving, and resource utilization. In the stock era, the precision of renovation is more important than scale.

About TIANYI LIMITED: TIANYI LIMITED is deeply engaged in the field of wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse, and is committed to providing efficient, low-carbon, and sustainable water treatment solutions for municipal and industrial customers.