According to Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air , China will need around 1,700GW of wind and solar capacity, over 40 per cent more than the planned 1,200GW, just to hit its target of 25 per cent non-fossil-fuel energy in 2030.
“This will only be sufficient for getting on track to carbon neutrality, if energy demand growth slows down significantly from the rate seen in the past few years,” he said. “However, if China returns to the energy-intensive growth of the past years, even more clean energy will be needed to both cover the growth in demand and to start displacing existing coal use.
Fossil fuels have powered much of China’s rapid economic growth in the past year, making it the world’s second-largest economy and the. The country especially relies on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, which accounted for more than 60 per cent of its electricity generation in 2020 and has been largely consumed by key industries – steel, cement and chemical production – that have driven its economic growth.
To slash GHG emissions, Xi announced last April that China would start phasing down coal use from 2026, and strictly limit the increase in coal consumption over the 2021 to 2025 period. However, China’s slowing economic growth and power shortages this summer, resulting from