Beijing wants to shift coal from baseload supplier of electricity to a role supporting solar and wind, which fluctuate through the day
Published Tue, Feb 3, 2026 · 11:36 AM
CHINA fielded a record number of proposals for new coal-fired power plants last year, even as generation from fossil fuels fell amid a surge of clean energy.
Proposed new and re-activated projects rose to 161 gigawatts in 2025, according to a joint report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, and Global Energy Monitor. China also commissioned 78 gigawatts of new coal plants last year, the most in a decade, and started construction on another 83 gigawatts, according to the report.
China is by far the world’s biggest coal user. In 2025, the amount of coal-power capacity it brought online in just one-year was comparable to India’s buildup over the previous 10 years, the report found.
The building boom underscores the government’s priority of ensuring stable energy supplies after being stung by a series of power shortages in 2021 and 2022. Construction is coinciding with a huge wave of solar and wind and their battery backups, which are more than meeting growth in electricity demand, putting thermal power generation in decline last year for the first time in a decade.
“China is building coal capacity far faster than it is using it, pushing utilisation down as wind and solar power surge,” said Christine Shearer, a research analyst at GEM. “The bigger risk is the opportunity cost: every idle coal plant is capital not spent on the truly flexible, clean power system China could be leading the world to build.”
Just because new coal plants are being proposed does not mean they will ultimately get built. The government plans to peak use of the fuel between 2026 and 2030, and only 45 gigawatts of permits were given out last year, the least since 2021, according to the report.
Beijing wants to shift coal from baseload supplier of electricity to a role supporting solar and wind, which fluctuate through the day. The government’s economic planning agency said last week that it will broaden payments to thermal power plants and energy storage stations for being on standby to adjust their generation as needed. BLOOMBERG
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