China Added 78 GW Of Coal Power Plants In 2025
Much to the disappointment of the green blob, China continues to build new coal power plants as if there was no tomorrow
Despite the rise of wind and solar power, which produced 18 percent of China’s electricity in 2024, coal power has remorselessly increased as well.
The people in charge of energy policy in China know that you cannot run an electricity grid with large amounts of intermittent power.
They also know China will need ever increasing amounts of electricity in years to come. Hence the decision to keep on building new, modern coal plants.
Source: globalenergymonitor.org
China is believed to have 1267 GW of coal power capacity at the end of 2025. Another 83 GW is under construction, which will add 6.5 percent more capacity, with only tiny amounts being closed.
CREA cannot understand why China has chosen to do this, when it will mean breaching “climate obligations”. They cannot understand why they don’t simply switch to ‘renewables’ instead.
Source: ourworldindata.org
One particular whine from CREA is that China is focussing on large coal plants of GW+. As CREA points out, these are purpose designed for baseload operation, rather than flexible operation.
This is the strongest sign yet that China’s grid will be based around a large proportion of firm, baseload power, with ‘renewables’ topping it up. Meanwhile older coal plants, which are more flexible, will act as capacity reserve in the same way as gas plants do here.
The proportion of wind and solar power probably will increase in the next few years – CREA talk about 30 percent by 2030. And it is quite likely that coal power will level off soon. But that does not mean that coal power will be phased out.
Far from it. About 400 GW of new coal power capacity has been built in the last ten years and that will increase to 600 GW in the next few years, given the plants already under construction or permitted.
They will form the backbone of China’s power supply for decades to come. The green blob might not like it, but China’s leaders live in the real world.
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