China’s Renewable Energy Capacity Overtakes Coal for First Time

China's renewable energy generation capacity edged out coal power capacity for the first time last year, with new solar driving the electricity sector’s efforts to reach ambitious national carbon emissions goals even as the removal of subsidies continued to drag the growth of wind turbine construction.

Renewable energy, a category which in China also includes nuclear and hydropower, accounted for 47.3% of China's total installed generation capacity by the end of 2022, with coal accounting for just 43.8% of generation capacity, said Wang Dapeng, deputy director of the New and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration at a press conference on Monday.