China added record amounts of wind and solar power capacity in 2025, while polluting coal and gas power also surged, according to data released on Wednesday by its National Energy Administration.
The world’s second-largest economy added 543 gigawatts of new energy capacity from all sources last year, around twice Germany’s entire power generation capacity, as it seeks to fuel the energy-intensive industries of the future while reaching its emission reduction targets.
That included 315 gigawatts of solar power and 119 gigawatts of wind power, helping to raise total installed power generation capacity 16.1 percent compared to the previous year.
But polluting gas and coal power also rose by around 93 gigawatts — 75 percent more than the country added in 2024 — which pushed total installed thermal power capacity up 6.3 percent.
The record renewable additions were equivalent to about 17,000 wind turbines and 500 million solar panels, according to Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
“That’s two wind turbines per hour, and a solar panel surface area of 20 football fields per hour, installed,” he wrote on X.
While China’s power demand is still rising, the latest additions “will help replace power generation from fossil fuels well into next year”, Myllyvirta said.
However, the huge coal and gas plant additions will likely lead to plummeting utilisation and “risks creating new obstacles to clean energy”, he wrote.
China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, but it is also a renewable energy powerhouse.
It has set goals of peaking its carbon emissions by 2030, cutting them at least 7 percent by 2035 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.
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