China Doubles Down on Clean Energy Even as Coal Keeps Growing
By Felicity Bradstock - Aug 02, 2026, 10:00 AM CDT
- China plans to increase renewable energy production to 1.8 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent by 2030, backed by major investments in wind, solar, storage, hydropower, and green hydrogen.
- The country continues to dominate global renewable energy deployment, with the world's largest pipelines for both solar and wind projects.
- Despite rapid clean energy growth, China is still expanding coal power, raising questions about whether renewable generation will be enough to meet its climate goals.
China has announced plans to double down on its already ambitious renewable energy targets by massively expanding its solar and wind capacity by the end of the decade. China has been rapidly growing its renewable energy portfolio for several decades to become the world leader in green energy. However, despite its ambitious renewable energy plans, it also plans to continue expanding its coal production.
China is the largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter in the world; however, it has also grown to become the biggest renewable energy producer globally. The government set an ambitious goal of reaching peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, despite its increasing power needs and its continual reliance on coal.
China installed around 360 GW of wind and solar power capacity in 2024 alone, which contributed over 50 per cent of global additions that year. This brought its total installed capacity to 1.4 TW, around one-third of the world’s 4.5 TW capacity. In addition to accelerating the rollout of solar and wind power, the government has also welcomed the adoption of cleantech and business models that support renewable energy growth, including battery storage, virtual power plants, and electric vehicles (EVs).
In July, China announced plans to increase solar and wind power production by 53 per cent by 2030, as part of the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan period. The plan was issued jointly by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration. China now aims to increase overall renewable energy production to 1.8 billion tons of coal equivalent (tce) by 2030 from 1.18 billion tce in 2025.
The government aims for wind and solar power, backed up by storage, to provide 8 per cent of their installed capacity during peak demand and supply 20 per cent of electricity use during demand spikes. It also plans to add over 300 GW of renewable energy that can be dispatched when demand spikes.
The plan plans to add 150 million tce of wind and solar use outside the power sector for sectors such as renewables-powered heating and cooling and green hydrogen, a sector whose production China aims to increase to 2 million metric tons by the end of the decade. The government also targets 570 GW of hydropower capacity, including 160 GW of pumped storage capacity, by 2030.
China currently has a solar power pipeline of around 664 GW planned or under construction, around one-third of the global total. The Asian giant also has almost 700 GW of proposed wind capacity, or one-quarter of the global total.
There are also plans to develop China’s deep-sea offshore wind bases and to integrate offshore wind with underwater data centres. Finally, China intends to pilot renewables megabases that transmit wholly renewable energy. Wind and solar power currently contribute around 20 per cent of the power China delivers through its ultra-high voltage transmission network, which moves power from megabases in the north and northwest to cities and factories in the east.
China aims to develop 10 megabases under its five-year plan 2026-2030 and has proposed 11 transmission lines delivering 129 GW of wind and solar power and 40 GW of coal power. The high proportion of coal generation in the power mix could potentially undermine the government’s clean energy aims. China could instead use energy storage technologies to make its intermittent renewables more reliable.
As part of the plan, the Chinese government also intends to continue expanding international cooperation on renewable energy, support the global green energy transition, and encourage the international adoption of its green energy technologies, standards, and certification systems.
Alongside renewable energy growth, China intends to continue supporting the expansion of the coal sector to ensure stability in its power sector. In 2025, China contributed 78 per cent of global coal power capacity that commenced operations. It is both the biggest consumer and the largest producer of coal worldwide, accounting for 86 per cent of the total global capacity under construction.
China’s coal power output increased in early 2026, which suggests its decrease in power-sector emissions in 2025 may have been temporary, even vis-à-vis record renewable energy growth. Power-sector emissions rose in the first four months of the year, although they remain below 2024 levels at present.
Qi Qin, an analyst at CREA, stated, “The situation is alarming… China has installed enormous amounts of solar and wind capacity, but the question is whether that capacity is being fully utilised.”
China is developing its renewable energy capacity at an extraordinary pace, faster than any other country. New targets suggest that China is rolling out wind and solar power even faster than it intended under its previous ambitious green energy targets. Nevertheless, its heavy dependence on coal and plans for further expansion have the potential to undermine its emissions reduction targets in the coming decades.
By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com
