East Asia

From January through June, Chinese officials permitted 10.3 gigawatts of new coal capacity, far less than the 50.4 gigawatts approved in the first half of last year, according to an analysis from Greenpeace and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. While China is bullish on renewables — it is currently building twice as much wind and solar as the rest of the world combined — officials have been looking to coal to meet demand when solar and wind are in short supply.

In what is being hailed as a “pivotal moment” and an “historic first”, the accumulated capacity of wind and solar projects in China has overtaken coal for the first time, and solar capacity alone is predicted to overtake coal within two years. Rystad Energy says it has analyzed the latest data from China’s National Energy Administration and says the additions of wind and solar have outstripped coal in China by a factor of 16 in the first half of 2024 – as new coal additions slump to just eight gigawatts.

China remains the world leader on solar. It has already installed over a whopping 100GW of new solar capacity this year, bringing the country’s total solar fleet to over 700GW. Total solar generation capacity is up 51% year-on-year.