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A floating solar farm by Sungrow Power Supply, built on the site of a former coal mine now filled with water, in Huainan, China, on Monday, May 15, 2023. The facility is the size of more than 400 football fields and generates electricity for more than 100,000 households.
© Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
China installed more solar panels in 2023 than any other country overall.
This massive expansion could signal the peak of emissions.
China installed more solar panels than any other country overall in 2023, further expanding its massive renewable energy fleet that is already a world leader by a wide margin.
The country installed 216.9 gigawatts of solar installations last year, surpassing the previous record of 87.4 gigawatts set in 2022, the National Energy Administration said in a statement.
That's more than the entire 175.2 gigawatt fleet in the U.S., the world's second-largest solar market, according to BloombergNEF estimates.
The NEA measures capacity in AC, while BNEF measures DC, so the actual gap is even larger.
China also added 75.9 gigawatts of wind turbines, up from 37.6 gigawatts last year, also a record.
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Why China can now burn less coal
A surge in clean energy in China, the biggest polluter, helped global renewable energy use hit a record 510 gigawatts last year, the International Energy Agency said.
According to the IEA, countries are moving ever closer to the COP28 climate summit's goal of tripling renewable energy by the end of the decade.
China probably accounted for 58% of global solar and 60% of global wind installations last year, according to BNEF.
The expansion of renewable energy means China can burn less coal to meet rising energy demand, and the shift has led to forecasts that the world's biggest polluter may have reached its emissions peak last year, well ahead of the government's target for 2030.
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The effects of the plans in China
Still, China continues to expand its vast network of coal-fired power plants, which provide about 59% of the country's electricity.
Officials emphasize that the new power plants are needed primarily as a backup for intermittent solar and wind energy and that coal consumption will decline from 2025.
Thermal generation capacity increased by 57.93 gigawatts last year, the NEA said.
Solar and wind installations have been boosted in part by a steep fall in costs as fierce competition among manufacturers has pushed prices for modules and turbines in China to record lows.
This depressed manufacturers' profitability and raised expectations of major consolidation in the industry this year.
The acceleration of renewable electricity generation also poses challenges as China's power grid struggles to keep up.
Some regions lack the infrastructure capacity to accommodate more solar energy and have begun to introduce stricter regulations for new projects.
Nevertheless, China is expected to maintain renewable energy growth.
BNEF forecasts solar installations will rise by about 7% this year, while new wind capacity will increase by 11%.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on January 26, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals