China installed record wind and solar power last year, but a sharp rise in new coal and gas plants threatens to undermine its clean energy transition.
BEIJING: China added record amounts of wind and solar power capacity in 2025, according to official data released on Wednesday.
The National Energy Administration reported that 315 gigawatts of solar power and 119 gigawatts of wind power were installed last year.
This helped raise the country’s total installed power generation capacity by 16.1% compared to the previous year.
However, new polluting gas and coal power capacity also surged by around 93 gigawatts, which was 75% more than the country added in 2024.
Total installed thermal power capacity increased by 6.3% as a result.
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said the record renewable additions were equivalent to about 17,000 wind turbines and 500 million solar panels.
“That’s two wind turbines per hour, and a solar panel surface area of 20 football fields per hour, installed,” he wrote on X.
Myllyvirta noted that while China’s power demand is still rising, the latest additions “will help replace power generation from fossil fuels well into next year”.
He warned that the huge coal and gas plant additions will likely lead to plummeting utilisation and “risks creating new obstacles to clean energy”.
China added 543 gigawatts of new energy capacity from all sources last year, around twice Germany’s entire power generation capacity.
The world’s second-largest economy is seeking to fuel its energy-intensive industries while reaching its emission reduction targets.
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% by 2035 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.