The global warming and climate change have put enormous pressure on both governments and industries to re-think their attitudes and behaviours towards sustainability issues. The past decades have witnessed a number of renewable energy developments across the world. Even though these developments are not issue-free, it is generally recognized that the benefits outweigh disadvantages. However, there is an increasing level of concern on the high initial cost associated with the renewable energies, which was claimed as one of critical barriers to the promotion of its further developments. A case study approach is adopted in this study to investigate the pricing and affordability issues associated with the renewable energy in China. The policy framework and related statistics are critically reviewed in order to discuss these issues from different stakeholders' perspective in Shandong province, China. It is concluded that the affordability remains a critical issue despite numerous efforts have been made by the Chinese Government and Shandong Provincial Government on renewable power pricing. This study offers a useful reference to pricing and affordability of renewable energy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.