Pivotal moment - China’s renewable energy outpaces coalPivotal moment - China’s renewable energy outpaces coal
Renewable energy commissioned in China this year has outpaced new coal capacity for the first time.

The country’s National Energy Administration has released data showing that wind and solar energy are taking the lion’s share of new energy additions, according to analysis by Oslo-based Rystad Energy. By 2026, solar power alone is set to surpass coal as China’s primary energy source. Cumulative capacity is expected to exceed 1.38TW, 150GW more than coal, Rystad said.
Commenting on the findings, Rystad Senior Analyst, Simeng Deng said: “We’re at a pivotal moment for both China and the global energy transition. With strong renewable energy project pipelines in place, the country is on track to shed its reputation and the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter and power consumer.”
Rystad’s experts estimate that 40GW of new coal energy was commissioned in 2023, but this fell sharply to 8GW over the first six months of this year.
The Chinese Government has imposed stricter restrictions on new coal projects to meet carbon reduction goals, the Oslo firm said, with the phase-out of smaller coal plants, upgrades to existing ones, and more stringent standards for new projects. As a result, the addition gap between coal and clean energy has widened dramatically, reaching a 16-fold difference over the first half of the year.
Although onshore wind was introduced in China in the early 2000s, offshore wind power only came into the country’s energy mix around 2018. However, in a bid to secure feed-in tariffs and subsidies before they were phased out, no less than 71GW of new installations were completed in 2020. Following lower levels for the next two years, wind capacity soared again last year to 75GW. A similar figure is expected this year.
China overtook the UK to become the world’s largest producer of offshore wind energy in 2021.
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