Wind and solar energy surged in China in 2015 to record levels, helping the country to pivot away from coal, which still provides two-thirds of its power

China installed a whopping 32.5 gigawatts of wind energy capacity last year Xu Yu/Xinhua Press/Corbis

China is surging ahead in switching to renewables and away from coal in what its officials say will allow it to surpass its carbon emissions targets.

The country’s solar and wind energy capacity soared last year by 74 and 34 per cent respectively compared with 2014, according to figures issued by China’s National Bureau of Statistics yesterday.

Meanwhile, its consumption of coal – the dirtiest of the fossil fuels – dropped by 3.7 per cent, with imports down by a substantial 30 per cent.


The figures back up claims last month in Hong Kong by Xie Zhenhua, China’s lead negotiator at at the UN climate talks in Paris last December, that the country will “far surpass” its 2020 target to reduce carbon emissions per unit of national wealth (GDP) by 40 to 45 per cent from 2005 levels.

Wind power record

Since China emits nearly a third of the world’s carbon dioxide, which is heating up the planet, this could make a major contribution to holding back temperature increases to the 2 °C degree maximum global target agreed by governments last December in Paris.

“The latest figures confirm China’s record-breaking shift toward renewable power and away from coal,” says Tim Buckley of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an energy consultancy in Cleveland, Ohio.

“China’s official 2015 wind installations are an all-time global record of 32.5 gigawatts,” says Buckley. “China itself is the only nation to have come anywhere near this, delivering 20.7 gigawatts of new wind capacity in 2014.”

Competing with fossil fuels

The latest figures state that “clean energy” – a combination of hydro, wind, solar, nuclear and natural gas – now accounts for 18 per cent of all its energy, up from 13 per cent in 2011.

“We’re now at the point where these technologies can compete head-to-head with gas and coal on price, meaning that this growth is only going to accelerate,” says Maf Smith, deputy chief executive of RenewableUK, representing the UK’s wind and wave power producers. “The UK alone has increased the amount it generates from wind power from 1 to 11 per cent in a decade.”

“It’s a really positive signal, a perfect example of an emerging economy trying to shift the way it develops,” says Ranping Song of the World Resources Institute think tank in Washington DC.

Peak coal?

China is due to issue its next five-year economic plan this month. “So it’s a perfect time to see how serious they are about tackling emissions,” Song says.

Despite renewables gains, coal still provides almost two-thirds of China’s power consumption. But the dip in coal consumption over the past two years – which equals an entire year’s coal consumption in Japan – suggests that China may now have reached “peak coal”. “China’s market for coal consumption has started to become saturated, and should gradually decline,” Xie said in Hong Kong.

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