The low-carbon city pilot policy not only impacts the urban energy consumption and carbon emissions at the macro level, but also influences the digital transformation, energy conservation, and total factor productivity of industrial, manufacturing, and heavy-pollution enterprises at the micro level. However, how it affects the development of renewables remains unknown. Against this backdrop, a “quasi-natural experiment” was developed from the low-carbon city polit, and the difference-in-difference (DID) model was used to examine its impacts on the performance of renewable energy enterprises. The findings indicate that the low-carbon city polit policy notably promotes the development of renewables by enhancing the performance of renewable energy enterprises in the polit areas, and this promoting effect is strengthened as the policy progresses. The results remain robust after a series of rigorous tests. The policy primarily boosts corporate performance by increasing the net profit of renewable energy enterprises. Additionally, heterogeneities across enterprise regions, ownership types, and business categories are observed: the promotion effects are more significantly occurred in central and western China, state-owned renewable energy enterprises, and renewable power generation enterprises. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of how the development of renewables and energy transition can be achieved through the low-carbon city pilot policy.