China Renewable Energy Growth Soars & Coal Use Declines

[GennGreymane]

https://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/06...-use-declines/

China’s solar and wind energy capacity increased by 74% and 34%, respectively, in 2015, while coal consumption dropped by 3.7%.

Image of wind farm in China's Xinjiang provinceChina’s National Bureau of Statistics released figures for 2015 this week, and officials believe that the country’s current growth path will allow them to soon surpass their carbon emissions targets. Specifically, China broke two new records in 2015, installing a record 32.5% of wind in 2015, and a record 18.3 GW of solar in 2015 — both of which were higher than initial estimates.

“The latest figures confirm China’s record-breaking shift toward renewable power and away from coal,” said Tim Buckley, Director of Energy Finance Studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). “Solar and wind continue to be the big winners, as illustrated by a 73.7% increase in grid-connected solar generation capacity. Declining consumption coupled with an over-abundance of domestic supply, meaning coal imports into China were particularly badly hit, dropping 30.4% yoy.”

Timothy Buckley also makes note of just how fast global electricity markets are transforming. Despite China’s confirmed figures being largely in line with initial estimates, they nevertheless highlight that global electricity markets “are transforming a great deal faster than anyone actually expected.”

The transformation is nothing without the corresponding decrease in fossil fuels, and China seems to be making strong headway towards its goals to decrease its coal usage and import. 2015 saw coal consumption decline 3.7%, year-over-year, and net coal imports dropped a much more significant 30.4% year-over-year, down to 198.7 million tonnes. This trend has already been seen to continue into 2016, with January’s net coal imports dropping by 11.6% year-over-year.

“IEEFA forecasts that China will install an additional 22 GW of wind, 16GW of new hydro, another 6GW of nuclear, and 18GW of solar (60% utility scale, 40% distributed rooftop solar) in 2016,” explained Buckley. “With electricity demand forecast to grow by 3.0-3.5% yoy in 2016, this 62GW of additional zero carbon electricity capacity will be more than sufficient to meet total electricity demand growth, such that coal consumption is forecast to fall again in 2016.”

[Barael]

But remember, even if climate change wasn't a huge hoax, it'd be useless for the US to commit to any kind of climate action since China isn't and is never going to do anything about it.

[Ghostpanther]

Not too long ago ( last year? ), they signed a multi billion deal with Russia to import natural gas. So stands to reason they would be reducing coal consumption. So I would not get too excited about them switching to solar and wind generated energy. China operates behind a curtain of deception.

[Floorman]

But remember, even if climate change wasn't a huge hoax, it'd be useless for the US to commit to any kind of climate action since China isn't and is never going to do anything about it.

The whole climate debate aside, are you saying making air everyone breathes cleaner isn't important? Because however you feel about what you might think is a hoax, pushing towards cleaner air is just win/win for everyone.

[Barael]

The whole climate debate aside, are you saying making air everyone breathes cleaner isn't important? Because however you feel about what you might think is a hoax, pushing towards cleaner air is just win/win for everyone.

I fails at sarcasm, I suppose.

[GennGreymane]

Not too long ago ( last year? ), they signed a multi billion deal with Russia to import natural gas. So stands to reason they would be reducing coal consumption. So I would not get too excited about them switching to solar and wind generated energy. China operates behind a curtain of deception.

I;ve been reading those deals have been up in the air recently. Countries being nervous about dealing with Russia and all.

[Hiricine]

They build fake cities that no one lives in, because they figured it could depopulate their overpopulated cities. Its about time they just pick something to build that makes at least a remote amount of sense. They have some of the, if not the dirtiest air on the planet.

[Independent voter]

Yeah, the increase in natural gas use is probably responsible for the decline in coal. I believe China will become a huge source of green house gasses over the next 50 years because a lot of Chinese want to buy a car.

[Ghostpanther]

I;ve been reading those deals have been up in the air recently. Countries being nervous about dealing with Russia and all.

They signed a 30 year deal. Not one, but 2 agreements. The last one coming after Russia annexed the Crimea. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...al-with-accord like I said, China operates internally different than the image they like to show to the western world. They do have a air pollution problem and switching to natural gas over coal, will help with that. But rest assured, they could not give 2 shits about global warming.

[Endus]

I don't think china's primary motivation is climate change. They have a massive problem with air polution that simply put destroys productivity (nothing kills your GDP worse than entire cities losing days of work and shoping because noone can step outside) plus they obviously would want to move to renewable energy because that means they are far less dependent on coal and oil imports.

While that's definitely a factor, they're also not disputing the science behind climate change, and they recognize that they're a major contributor. The difficulty is that they're still a developing nation, and have limited capacity to afford rapid change, but they've still made pretty significant shifts in policy in recent history.

[Krille]

While that's definitely a factor, they're also not disputing the science behind climate change, and they recognize that they're a major contributor. The difficulty is that they're still a developing nation, and have limited capacity to afford rapid change, but they've still made pretty significant shifts in policy in recent history.

So happy that China has acknowledged and realized their threat to the environment. Means there's some hope. Now India need to do their part too, all these very high density populations must try to do more, even if it's difficult to start.

[Endus]

So happy that China has acknowledged and realized their threat to the environment. Means there's some hope. Now India need to do their part too, all these very high density populations must try to do more, even if it's difficult to start.

India's much the same issue; they have huge populations, but they are NOT wealthy, developed nations. They need to provide services to that population, but they lack the wealth to afford the cleaner, more productive power generation systems, particularly when people get squirrely about nuclear power in particular.

It's not about will to effect change, with China and India, it's primarily about economics. The best possible thing we could do is subsidize cheap, clean generation platforms, making it cheaper for them to build solar/wind/tidal/etc than to build more coal/oil/gas power plants. The costs of those have been lowering over time as well, as their efficiency improves and the cost of production declines, which amounts to the same thing, but it's only very recently that they've started to be a real economic option.

[Krille]

India's much the same issue; they have huge populations, but they are NOT wealthy, developed nations. They need to provide services to that population, but they lack the wealth to afford the cleaner, more productive power generation systems, particularly when people get squirrely about nuclear power in particular.

It's not about will to effect change, with China and India, it's primarily about economics. The best possible thing we could do is subsidize cheap, clean generation platforms, making it cheaper for them to build solar/wind/tidal/etc than to build more coal/oil/gas power plants. The costs of those have been lowering over time as well, as their efficiency improves and the cost of production declines, which amounts to the same thing, but it's only very recently that they've started to be a real economic option.

I agree that it's an economic issue when it comes to these nations. And that's why i also think the western companies that have factories in India should do more to try and fix their part. But the main reason they have these factories is because it's cheap, developing a sustainable energy solution would mean that they actually had to invest money in it.

[GennGreymane]

They signed a 30 year deal. Not one, but 2 agreements. The last one coming after Russia annexed the Crimea. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...al-with-accord like I said, China operates internally different than the image they like to show to the western world. They do have a air pollution problem and switching to natural gas over coal, will help with that. But rest assured, they could not give 2 shits about global warming.

I've read much of the deals have barely begun and other issues have arose. Also no shit.... the article does not discuss climate change.

[SodiumChloride]

Not too long ago ( last year? ), they signed a multi billion deal with Russia to import natural gas. So stands to reason they would be reducing coal consumption. So I would not get too excited about them switching to solar and wind generated energy. China operates behind a curtain of deception.

Quite sure China is only pushing "green energy" because a lot of it uses rare earth minerals[1] that the country has a monopoly on producing.

[1] the extraction of which is anything but "green" (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2015...place-on-earth)