Tanya Weaver Thu 11 Jul 2024
Collected at: https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/07/11/china-continues-streak-ahead-rest-world-building-wind-and-solar-projects
New data from Global Energy Monitor (GEM) has found that China is building almost twice as much wind and solar energy capacity as every other country in the world combined.
While a GEM report published earlier this year found that China accounted for two-thirds of coal-burning power capacity in 2023 , its most recent reports – Global solar power tracker and Global wind power tracker – found that the world’s second-largest economy is also leading the way in renewables development with 180GW of utility-scale solar and 159GW of wind power already under construction.
The total of this wind and solar capacity is nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined, and enough to power all of South Korea, the reports find.
Wind and solar now account for 37% of the total power capacity in the country – an 8% increase from 2022 – and are widely expected to surpass coal capacity, which is 39% of the total right now, in 2024.
Between March 2023 and March 2024, China installed more solar than it had in the previous three years combined, and more than the rest of the world combined for 2023.
There was a massive increase in distributed solar in 2023, with nearly half of all distributed solar installed on residential rooftops.
This growth is attributed to the advantages of lower investment costs, easy installation and strong policy support making it more popular in the market, according to the reports.
In terms of wind power, China has seen a 51GW wind capacity increase since 2023. This growth exceeds the total operating capacity of any country, except the US.
The combined capacity of pre-construction and announced stages for solar power reaches 387GW and 336GW for wind. This combined capacity of approximately 503GW will come online between 2025 and 2030.
This will hopefully put China on track to reach its climate goals. China has committed to bringing carbon emissions to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060.
However, the reports also highlighted that China’s grid still heavily relies on coal power to mitigate the intermittency of renewables, and as such casts a shadow on wind and solar’s achievements.
For example, in the plan for the second wave of mega wind and solar bases, 30% of the proposed capacity will come from coal power, including 28GW of new coal, among which 10GW is already under construction.
Another challenge is the lack of ultra high voltage transmission lines to deliver the surge in renewable power. The reports find that this limitation in transmission capacity is a bottleneck in the transmission of wind and solar power.
They conclude that while China’s unabated wave of construction will see the country continuing to lead in wind and solar installation, it needs to “turn the massive renewables build-up into power generation, replace fossil fuels and reach the ‘tipping point’ so as to peak its carbon emissions as early as possible”.
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