A widely shared post on social media said China would be installing a lot of wind and solar power if the technologies “were the answer”.
The post claimed: “If wind and solar power were the answer, China would be building them at record speed. Instead they’re increasing their use of coal.”
Evaluation
China installed more solar and wind power capacity than the rest of the world combined in 2023. It is also increasing coal capacity, but at a much slower rate.
The facts
Data from Ember, an energy think tank, shows that by 2023 China had 610 gigawatts (GW) of solar power capacity installed, an increase of 55% compared to the year before and a 3.5-fold increase compared to 2018.
The Ember figures for China are gathered from the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. Data for other countries are gathered from official sources or databases that collect figures from several countries, such the EU’s data agency Eurostat or the United Nations.
The amount of solar power capacity that China built in 2023 alone – 217 GW – was more than the 129 GW which was installed in the rest of the world combined in 2023, analysis of the Ember data by the PA news agency showed.
The same analysis showed that wind capacity was 442 GW in 2023, up 21% compared to the year before and more than double the capacity of 2018.
China installed 76 GW of wind power capacity in 2023, more than the 40 GW that was installed in the rest of the world combined, the Ember data showed.
For comparison in the Ember spreadsheet the UK’s solar power capacity rose 7% in 2023 compared to the year before and 20% compared to 2018. Wind capacity rose 5% in 2023 and 40% between 2018 and 2023.
China still uses a lot of coal to generate electricity. According to Ember, in 2023 it had 1,140 GW of capacity installed, a rise of 4% on the year before. Compared to 2018 that was up 17%.
Coal still made up around 61% of electricity generation in China in 2023 while wind and solar together made up around 16%, the Ember data showed. Coal’s share of generation has fallen each year since 2011 and its peak in the 2000s was 81% in 2007.
These figures only include coal which is burnt to generate electricity. Coal is also used for other purposes, such as in heavy industry.
Coal makes up a similar proportion – 60.6% in 2021 according to the International Energy Agency – of China’s total energy consumption – which includes heavy industry, as well as petrol burnt in cars and other energy.
Links
Ember – Yearly electricity data (archived page and data – downloads as csv file)
PA news agency calculations using raw data from Ember – see “Calculations” sheet – downloads as csv file (archived)
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