Solar surpasses coal as China's top source of power capacity

329

u/coachhunter2 9h ago

But Trump said China doesn’t do renewable energy! He wasn’t lying, was he?

89

u/StrawLiberal 8h ago

China's nuclear and renewable electricity generation is an admirable 43% while US nuclear and renewable electricity generation is an abysmal 42%.

143

u/Thebraincellisorange 7h ago

the crazy thing is that the USA has added so little renewable energy the last decade.

China has ramped up at an unbelievable rate, showing the rest of the world that it can be done.

USA with orange ideologue at the helm has just doubled down on coal.

stupidity.

40

u/HotTestesHypothesis 7h ago

It can be done technically, but the problem is political.

28

u/Thebraincellisorange 6h ago

correct.

it is a matter of will and investment.

renewables have been shown to have a massive affect on a countries emmissions. and can reduce the cost of power to 0 like it has in Australia during they day due to how much solar they have.

and its not even solar farms, its that half the houses in that country have solar panels on the roof feeding into the electricity grid.

14

u/HotTestesHypothesis 5h ago

That's one advantage of China's system... If the government wants to do something, then it shall be done. Easy to force something that's good for society through, but also easy for corruption.

I'm always amazed by the rapid development of the high speed rail network in China. Even Shanghai to Beijing back in 2011 was ok, but having visited the northwest province of Gansu really amazed me.

9

u/danielpernambucano 4h ago

Tbf the explosive growth of renewables is not something exclusive to China, similar to Australia, in Brazil buying a solar panel is an investment that pays itself off in 4-5 years, the government doesn't really need to strong arm solar power into the economy.

1

u/HotTestesHypothesis 3h ago

Each source of renewable energy, and nuclear power, has its own unique requirements and societal considerations. I don't think I've heard of solar panels being installed at a large scale in urban areas, so the average person is unlikely to have an issue with something they don't interact with. Do Australians and Brazilians object to solar farms? Probably not

I have seen complaints by NIMBYs about wind turbines affecting the view, though I actually like seeing them as it represents a city progressing towards the future.

Nuclear power is an obvious one, such as the Germany case.

And then you have the current US which is trying to strongarm coal into the economy...

3

u/CloudZ1116 2h ago

Solar (and wind) has gotten so cheap now that the main problem to solve with deployments is no longer generation, but storage and transmission.

9

u/Worthyness 5h ago

That and just a shitton of regulations. In China, if thr government wants it, it doesnt matter what thr NIMBYs want or if its good for the environment, they can push it through. But in the US, if the government wants it, they will have to do it nicely and go through thr motions and listen to NIMBYs cry about how having a new high apeed train will ruin the view of their apartment complex

9

u/FewAdvertising9647 6h ago

It's political at a federal level. States have heavily been investing in solar. California, Texas and Florida I think have the most investment in recent times. And I don't think anyone would consider these states politically similar at a state level.

0

u/HotTestesHypothesis 5h ago

If there is incentive for the voters to invest in solar, whether it's for the environment or reduced electricity bills, then there is political motivation. I don't know what was promised, but I don't think these state governments would forcefully invest in solar without enough support.

9

u/djuice2k 4h ago

On top of that, as of this moment, China has currently 37 new Nuclear Power Plants in production as the same time, and guess what? The US has 0..

In 2 decades China would probably have no longer any reliance on fossil fuels for power.

-3

u/StrawLiberal 6h ago

China has also ramped up their fossil fuel consumption, including coal. Their energy consumption/production footprint has almost doubled in the past 5 years where their renewables are only a part of their increased production capacity. The US continues to reduce their coal-powered plants, although those are still largely supplanted by gas turbines.

China now produces over twice the amount of electricity that the US does per year.

25

u/sweatingbozo 6h ago

So china still uses way less fossil fuels per capita even with the increase in coal production?

1

u/FellatingNemo 6h ago

Per capita is probably a bad way to look at it since China is 5 times the size of the US. The US is producing almost twice the total electricity per capita.

There is a lot of rural China that doesn't use a lot of electricity because it is too expensive for those people. It's cheaper to burn wood and coal for cooking and heating homes. We're talking two-three times the US population living like that. It will really skew per capita numbers and it won't take into account the coal and wood burned in the stoves in their homes.

You should really look at the production ratios and carbon emissions per kWh. And China is still producing a very dirty electricity with almost half their electric production coming from coal alone.

China and the US basically have the same ratio of electricity being produced from fossil fuels 57-58%, but the US is burning a lot more natural gas which burns cleaner and more efficient than coal.

If you want to look at the amount of carbon produced per kWh of electricity you can get a better idea as to how clean each country's electrical production is

The US 343.2 gCO2eq/kWh

China 476.9 gCO2eq/kWh

World Avg. 404.9 gCO2eq/kWh

2

u/Synthetic_Kalkite 2h ago

Thanks, this was actually a very informative post and I at least learned something new.

0

u/StrawLiberal 6h ago

China definitely uses more coal per capita annually than the US, with China numbers being about 3895 kWh per capita and the US about 1906 kWh per capita. Total annual fossil fuels per capita looks a bit different, with China usage being 4514 kWh per capita opposed to 7450 kWh per capita for the US.

Which number you believe is better depends on whether you see coal power as a dirtier source than gas power.

Also note that China's number is increasing where the US number has been steady or decreasing for the past 20 years.

3

u/sweatingbozo 5h ago

Which source is more renewable?

1

u/StrawLiberal 4h ago

I don't think there is a coal vs natural gas renewability conversation since most gas doesn't really come from renewable methods. And I think that the renewable gas product is considered "biomass"

27

u/Kootenay4 5h ago

China was at less than 20% renewables/nuclear in 2000 while the US was already at 30%. Also worth noting is that total energy generation TRIPLED in China over that time period while in the US, it has stayed relatively flat. They have added enough renewables/nuclear alone since 2000 to power the entire US electric grid.

20

u/topitopi09 6h ago

42% of a lot (9.5GWh) and raising is quite not the same than 42% of half less (4.5 GWh) and stagnating.
https://www.iea.org/countries/united-states/electricity
https://www.iea.org/countries/china/electricity

1

u/StrawLiberal 4h ago

I agree that it's a good thing, especially if it curtails creation of new coal power plants, which seemed to be their preference in the past

1

u/Jzeeee 2h ago

It says 42% natural gas (LNG) not renewable. Renewable for US in under 40% according to your link. It says US uses 58.4% fossil fuel for energy in 2024 while China is using 64.3% fossil fuel for energy in 2023.

4

u/No-Significance2113 2h ago

America's population 350million, China's population 1.4 billion. Considering China is a massive exporter to majority of the world so you have to consider all the factories on top of that its insane how much renewable energy they've built.

3

u/mmaramara 3h ago

You seem to have mixed the numbers but yeah in 2025 USA and China were both 57-58% fossil fuels in terms of electricity production:

https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix

Africa was 75% fossils and EU was 29% fossils.

The average per capita electricity consumption, however, was nearly double in US compared to China. So the absolute amount of fossil-based electricity used by a US citizen was a lot higher than a Chinese citizen. And of course this is just electricity, not total emissions/consumption.

2

u/supra_kl 4h ago

Don Quixote is still yelling at windmills.

89

u/DonManuel 9h ago

The next big headline for China will be a huge grid upgrade to bring that electricity to consumers so curtailing can be minimized.

85

u/Heppernaut 8h ago

China is already doing some insane grid upgrades. They are building some 1MV lines and have some pretty wild transformer technology in the works.

34

u/Leek5 8h ago

Yea I was watching some videos on it. Ultra high voltage direct current. At a certain distance DC is actually more efficient than AC I think they are up to 1.1 million volts

6

u/dittbub 7h ago

this is a question i had. i understand AC delivery for long distances. but why isn't there a single DC converter in the home and have both AC and DC outlets throughout? Rather than have dozens of devices with their own converters

15

u/Leek5 7h ago

There is no dc standard for the home. Also what’s the benefit? DC devices also use different voltages. So it would need a converter anyways

2

u/faizimam 5h ago

It's basically happening now, but completely by accident.

48v power over Ethernet is now being used for all sorts of home automation uses, lights motorized blinds, sensors.

If you're planning it all in advance, it works great, but for most people they just can't be bothered.

Also it turns out that the efficiency gain really is not that significant given the work required.

1

u/3xnope 5h ago

Not needing bulky and ugly adapters everywhere is also a gain.

3

u/faizimam 5h ago

Gan based usb C charging has significantly improved the situation.

No need for transmission of DC when you have usb c ports within arms reach at all times, and for the end user the slight decrease in efficiency is not significant.

Having 2 Set of wires in the walls is simply not a tenable option for most people.

24

u/basal-and-sleek 7h ago

Politics and regional differences aside for a second,

You think the average person isn’t going to accidentally screw that up? Best case scenario, they fry their phone. Worst case scenario, death or fire.

0

u/X0Refraction 7h ago

Would it be that easy to mess up? If you kept the regional plugs/sockets for AC and then used USB-C for DC seems like it’d be pretty safe

7

u/red_planet_smasher 6h ago

240 watts is pretty good, but there are some DC consumers that need more. A desktop computer for example. Not a blocker but more of a question - how do we address this?

5

u/X0Refraction 6h ago

I guess just keep those usecases on AC, we don’t have to solve 100% of a problem to have a useful solution

2

u/red_planet_smasher 6h ago

Good call, I agree. We shouldn’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough and all that. Let’s do this!

18

u/SweetAlyssumm 5h ago

This is about electricity, not power. And it's about capacity, not generation:

"Solar farms overtook coal plants in July to become China's top source of installed power ‌capacity, state-run media reported on Tuesday, although solar still lags well behind coal in terms of power generation."

45

u/StrawLiberal 8h ago

We're talking about nameplate capacity here, instead of actual generation. Coal is still just under 50% of China's power source, but this is a step in the right direction with wind and solar totalling 25% of actual power generation.

For a comparison, the US generates about 20% of our power through wind and solar and maybe 15% by coal.

24

u/Gavangus 8h ago

Yeah the general population needs to understand difference between nameplate and capacity factor

12

u/StanDaMan1 7h ago

Nameplate is, in essence, the amount of electricity generated in ideal conditions. Strong and steady wind for Wind Turbines, or high Sun and clear skies for solar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nameplate_capacity

2

u/Duanedoberman 7h ago

A lot of the solar panels are being installed in mountainous areas in China, especially the Tibetan Plateau because solar panels are more productive the higher the elevation.

19

u/pjgf 8h ago

Yeah the general population needs to understand difference between nameplate and capacity factor

I mean, no, they really don’t. This is not something that is important to 99% of people.

6

u/StrawLiberal 8h ago

Yeah, nameplate capacity is unimportant to 99% of people, but essential to 99% of news articles.

9

u/pjgf 8h ago

Again, not really.

This is news regardless of whether we’re talking about nameplate capacity or generating capacity. And it’s good news, too.

6

u/coolstory 7h ago

I agree it’s good news, but to most people the headline implies that solar must generate more power than coal now, when in fact coal still generates about 5x as much power in China.

Using nameplate capacity to compare two technologies which are inherently going to have wildly different capacity factors is clearly misleading.

-1

u/pjgf 7h ago

It’s not misleading. Not in the slightest.

Is it misleading that it doesn’t mention that coal is an indirect form of solar energy? Or that it doesn’t mention that solar energy comes from the destruction of matter?

Does that make it misleading? Just because it doesn’t have all of the context about every concept within it?

3

u/coolstory 7h ago

I already said why it’s misleading: unless you already know what capacity factor is, and the relative ratio of coal to solar’s capacity factor in China, this headline tells you nothing about how much energy China is actually generating with each technology. Again, most people who read this would assume China must get more energy from solar than coal now, when that’s clearly very far from true.

0

u/pjgf 5h ago

Again, most people who read this would assume China must get more energy from solar than coal now

Oh yeah, you have a source for that or are you just assuming you know more than most people?

Good grief, the article is not even slightly misleading, you’re trying to make it sound misleading by pretending you know mystical knowledge.

•

u/coolstory 3m ago

Aside from anything else, what’s the point of comparing the nameplate capacity of these two technologies? What inference do you think we’re expected to draw?

4

u/StrawLiberal 7h ago

Not really. Actual capacity is what the energy that is generated and that they can use. Nameplate capacity is a number that they can look at and go, "Woo-hoo-hoo! Look at that number! This must mean that we're doing so much better than everyone says we are!"

1

u/pjgf 7h ago

So?

No seriously, so what?

Not every news article needs to have all of the context in the world. This one doesn’t talk about where coal came from. It doesn’t talk about the photoelectric effect. It doesn’t talk about the original of the English language. It doesn’t talk about the fusion of hydrogen into heavy elements in supernovae. Those are all as relevant to this discussion as nameplate capacity.

A news article can be about one thing.

3

u/Gavangus 8h ago

If you are discussing and voting based on something... Its important to actually understand it

12

u/pjgf 8h ago

Actually, it’s really not.

For voting purposes, it’s important to understand that experts understand it.

For discussing it, it doesn’t really matter at all. That’s the reason we discuss it.

•

u/omniuni 52m ago

I think what's more important overall is trajectory. China is clearly ramping up renewable energy projects. The US has been cancelling them.

We have been a leader, and are quickly falling behind. Its getting worse with data centers. If data centers were accompanied by solar plants that could at least power them during the day, it wouldn't be so bad. But we are actually using more coal and oil, and from inefficient generators, to meet demand.

We can, and should, be looking into a federal program to rapidly expand our clean energy generation to accommodate data centers, but the way we're doing it now is a disaster.

25

u/Wyciorek 9h ago

But at what cost?!

40

u/DonManuel 9h ago

Solar is the cheapest source of electricity that ever existed.

8

u/QuentinMagician 9h ago

Exactly! Just think about the steps:

Use sun and time and pressure tomake coal, extract coal, burn coal, get rid of coal ash, clean coal air,

vs.

Capture sunlight

-3

u/Dotster69 8h ago

This is disingenuous

0

u/WolpertingerRumo 4h ago

But you’d have to invest actual money. It’s much better to gift that money to fossil fuel companies in tax credits. That’s not actual money. That’s a long term investment. At least you can keep investing for a long time.

Edit: /s for safety

6

u/Duanedoberman 9h ago edited 7h ago

Instalation is a one off cost, its just maintenance after thst.

24

u/slayingdemons_always 9h ago

was referring to the BBC/broadcast agencies: "but at what cost"

-7

u/Howaboutnopers 8h ago

To be fair, solar produces toxic waste.

Not trying to defend fossil fuels.

It's just a fact.

16

u/pjgf 8h ago

Except, it’s not a fact.

Solar does not produce toxic waste. Some of the manufacturing technologies that some companies choose to use create toxic waste. They can be made without any toxic waste, and even if they are, it’s only produced once, vs constantly for fossil fuels.

5

u/Howaboutnopers 6h ago

Photovoltaic cells absolutely do contain toxic waste.

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/

There are efforts to recycle, but they are not sustainable as of now.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/01/1087488/why-recycling-alone-cant-power-climate-tech/

And non-toxic panels are being researched by plenty of researchers.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002236972500229X

But your claim that solar isn't toxic is uninformed nonsense. When we have better solar, it will be less toxic.

4

u/PECourtejoie 7h ago

While coal produces waste that recycles so cleanly in tumors inside your lungs!

0

u/Howaboutnopers 5h ago

I'm not here to defend coal.

I'm here to share reality.

If you think me using critical thinking skills makes me a Republican, then you're not worth my time.

4

u/hardinho 8h ago

The poor coal miners will lose their jobs!

2

u/True_Human 8h ago

At the cost of the potential profits of the fossile fuel industry. So in other words, a sacrifice about 90% of humanity is willing to make

-1

u/Ok_Turnover_6768 8h ago

No cost

9

u/Diddintt 8h ago

Capacity not generation, coal is still damn near half of china's power generation.

4

u/j1ggy 4h ago

Well yeah, you can't generate solar at night. But it just dropped below 50% of their total power generation. They've managed to offset a quarter of their power generation to wind and solar with day and night combined. That's impressive.

3

u/Diddintt 4h ago

% of coal being power generation has dropped but total coal power has increased 3%ish, its wild the amount of power they are building

•

u/JK_NC 52m ago

pfft. Sure, China has surpassed the US in green tech and future renewables but we went all in on prediction markets! A whole new kind of online gambling.

Not too shabby.

1

u/Glass-Amount-9170 5h ago

Why when they could buy beautiful clean coal from the Trump administration? Some are saying it’s the cleanest coal in history!

1

u/userhwon 5h ago

They're expanding both.

0

u/wigznet 5h ago

Meanwhile the rest of the world falls behind on advanced energy infrastructure and renewables.

They'll corner the industrial market of those goods like everything else.

Less coal is great. That's the good news.

-2

u/happy-cig 3h ago

Must be nice. They also welcomed their flock equivalent and property crime has plummeted.

-9

u/Political_breeds 8h ago

Iran should dump their Nuclear program and stick to solar. We love solar energy, and we hate the Iran Nuclear program. Iran should dump their Nuclear program immediately! Discard it!

-1

u/happy-cig 3h ago

Must be nice. They also welcomed their flock equivalent and property crime has plummeted.

-20

u/DogBarf00 8h ago

China opens a new coal power plant almost daily. The last coal power plant to open in the US was in 2013.

5

u/mfb- 3h ago

China adds ~25 GW/year in coal, that's ~2-3 blocks per month not "almost daily". It also added 300 GW of solar in 2025 - even with the lower capacity factor that's much more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000-_New_coal-fired_power_capacity_-_Global_Energy_Monitor.svg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China

-13

u/swiftpwns 7h ago

A lot of fake solar is included in their numbers to pump up the numbers. Whole mountains of solar with no power going anywhere

Solar surpasses coal as China's top source of power capacity

You are about to leave Redlib