China generates less than half of its electricity from coal for the first time
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Coal’s share of the power mix was 49.7 per cent, Xing Yiteng, deputy director-general of the energy administration’s development and planning office, told a press conference on July 30.
PHOTO: AFP
- China generated less than 50% of its electricity from coal for the first half of 2026, with coal's share at 49.7% and renewables reaching 41.2%.
- Wind and solar power accounted for 24.6% of electricity, while natural gas and nuclear made up the rest of the energy mix.
- China aims to peak coal consumption by 2030 and plans to increase wind and solar to 30% by then, potentially reaching this target earlier with more solar-plus-battery systems.
AI generated
BEIJING – China, the world’s largest coal consumer, generated less than 50 per cent of its electricity from the fossil fuel in the six months to June, marking a first for the country which has been promoting the use of renewable energy, officials said.
Coal’s share of the power mix was 49.7 per cent, Xing Yiteng, deputy director-general of the energy administration’s development and planning office, told a press conference on July 30.
That share was well down from 65.5 per cent in 2016, previous figures from China’s National Energy Administration showed.
Renewable energy’s share grew to 41.2 per cent – the first time it topped 40 per cent – and of that wind and solar accounted for 24.6 per cent, Xing added. The share of wind and solar energy in China’s power mix was up from 9.7 per cent in 2020.
Natural gas and nuclear make up the balance.
Despite coal’s shrinking share, analysts say that China might still use more in 2026 than in 2025 as power demand rapidly climbs. More Chinese are switching to electric cars, data centres for artificial intelligence (AI) are being built out and exports continue to grow. Planners have set a deadline for coal consumption to peak no later than 2030.
China’s targets call for increasing wind and solar to 30 per cent of its power mix by 2030, but Gao Yuhe, Greenpeace East Asia’s project manager, says that goal could be hit by 2028, helped by more rooftop solar-plus-battery deployment.
“Storage, together with demand response and more flexible electricity markets, will enable much higher penetration of distributed solar and help meet growing electricity demand with renewable energy rather than fossil fuels,” she said.
China’s coal power share is much higher than some other large economies in part because it has abundant reserves and comparatively little natural gas. For example, coal made up just 17 per cent of US utility-scale power generation in 2025, while 41 per cent was from natural gas.
However, China’s coal dependence is lower than coal-rich India, where coal and lignite accounted for 69 per cent of power generation in 2025.
Despite ample domestic coal reserves, China still imported nearly 500 million tonnes of coal in 2025 – against 4.83 billion tonnes of domestic production – with much of the imports going to coastal power plants.
Coal’s decline could have knock-on effects for top suppliers Indonesia, Mongolia, Australia and Russia, although imported coal’s share depends largely on the price differential. While consumption in the coal-to-chemicals industry is still on the rise, many projects rely on cheap domestic coal. REUTERS
