Damping down coal Hopes rise as China turns slowly to cleaner power generation

Coal-fired power is still enjoying a construction boom in China, but a marked slowdown in the permitting of future plants has given experts hope that the world's biggest emitter may be turning a corner.

- Fiona Harvey, Amy Hawkins

China led the world in the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the first half of 2024, with work beginning on more than 41GW of new generation capacity, data published yesterday showed. That was as much new coal power capacity as China embarked on during the whole of 2022 and represented 90% of the world's new coal plant construction so far this year.

The Chinese government has a target of bringing 80GW of new coal-fired generation capacity online for the whole of 2024.

But while new starts surge ahead, the pipeline of future plants looks as if it could be much smaller.

Only 9GW worth of power plants received permits in the first half of 2024, a reduction of 83% compared with the first half of 2023, according to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor.

The slowdown in coal permits comes as China added as much new wind and solar generation capacity in 2023 as Britain's total electricity production from all sources.