A surprise? China quadrupled the number of permits for new coal-fired power plants

In September 2020, President Xi Jinping announced that the People’s Republic of China will “aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060”.

China’s total installed generation capacity of renewable energy now exceeds 1,200 GW and its hydropower, wind power, solar power, and biomass power generation capacity is ranked first in the world.

However, China’s electricity demand grows steadily, and even that renewable capacity is not enough. The country is the world’s largest energy consumer and carbon emitter, accounting for one-third of global CO2 emissions.

The ongoing drought and last summer’s historic heat wave moved the Country to increase the permits for new coal plants. The heat wave increased the demand for air conditioning and led to problems with the grid. The heat and drought led rivers to dry up, including some parts of the Yangtze, and meant less hydropower. High prices for liquified natural gas due to the invasion of Ukraine also led to the turn back to coal.

Thus, China permitted more coal power plants last year than at any time in the last seven years, according to a report by energy data organizations Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. It’s the equivalent of about two new coal power plants per week. The report finds the country quadrupled the amount of new coal power approvals in 2022 compared to 2021.

The report authors found the growth of new coal plant permitting appears to be a response to ongoing drought and last summer’s historic heat wave. The heat wave increased the demand for air conditioning and led to problems with the grid. The heat and drought led rivers to dry up, including some parts of the Yangtze, and meant less hydropower.

But the core growth of coal power, apart from these effects that exacerbate the need, was already expected, so it should not be a great surprise. The Total primary energy demand in China in the Announced Pledges Scenario (APS), 1980-2060, included a peak in coal-fired power generation before 2030. Thus, more coal-fired power plants were needed in parallel with a much higher flexibilization of the current ones to leave room for renewables. The APS was updated in October 2022 and you can see below in the highlighted red area that peak: