China Built More Coal Plants Than Any Year Since 2008. It Also Built More Renewables Than Anyone in History. Here's How Both Are True.

Every headline about China's energy follows the same script.

"China added record coal capacity despite building massive renewable energy."

That word — despite — is doing a lot of work. It's telling you coal and renewables compete. That one should replace the other. That building both is somehow contradictory.

Here's the thing: it's not.

The Numbers Don't Lie. They Just Don't Mean What You Think.

In 2025, China commissioned 78 gigawatts of new coal power. That's the most since 2008. Eighteen years.

Same year? China added over 430 GW of solar and wind. More renewables than any country has ever built in a single year.

Both things happened. At the same time. In the same grid.

And if you think that's a contradiction, you don't understand how electricity works.

What "Transition" Actually Means

Let's start with a fact most people skip: you can't just swap coal for solar.

Not because solar's bad. Because grids are physics, not politics.

Coal plants run 24/7. They're baseload — they churn out steady power whether it's noon or midnight, summer or winter.

Solar panels work when the sun shines. Wind turbines work when the wind blows. Both are amazing when they're on. Both produce zero when they're not.

That variability isn't a design flaw. It's just weather.

And here's the grid's problem: electricity demand doesn't care about weather. Hospitals need power at 3am. Factories run overnight. Air conditioning peaks at 2pm on the hottest day of the year.

If your grid runs on solar and wind, you need something standing by when the sun sets and the wind stops.

Twenty years ago, that backup was coal. Today? Still mostly coal. Tomorrow? Batteries. But we're not there yet.

China's Coal Plants Aren't Running Like They Used To

Here's where it gets interesting.

China's building more coal capacity. But it's burning less coal.

In the early 2000s, Chinese coal plants ran at 70% capacity factor. That means they operated at 70% of their maximum output, around the clock. Baseload, always on.

Today? Around 50%. And falling.

Why? Because renewables are covering the easy stuff — daytime demand, predictable peaks. Coal's getting pushed into a new role: standby power. Grid stability. The thing that kicks in when wind dies or clouds roll in.

China isn't building coal plants to run them full-time. It's building them to fill gaps.

That's the shift. Coal's going from "always on" to "there when needed."

The Grid Doesn't Care About Optics

Let's zoom out.

China's electricity demand hit 10,400 terawatt-hours in 2025. That's up 5% year-on-year, driven mostly by EVs, battery factories, and high-tech manufacturing.

You're making electric cars? You need electricity to build them. Lots of it.

Renewables covered almost all that new demand. But "almost" is the problem. A 5% demand jump in a grid this size is 500 TWh. That's more than the entire UK uses in a year.

Renewables filled most of it. Coal backstopped the rest.

And here's the kicker: by the end of 2025, China's wind and solar capacity — 1,840 GW — officially surpassed coal capacity for the first time in history.

Coal's share of the grid? Down to one-third. Wind and solar? Up to half.

That's not failure. That's the fastest energy transition any major economy has ever pulled off.

Battery Storage: The Missing Piece

So why not just build batteries and ditch coal?

Great question. Answer: they're working on it.

The IEA says the world needs 1,500 GW of battery storage by 2030 to make renewables truly viable as baseload replacements.

China's leading that race too. It's deploying grid-scale batteries faster than anyone. But even optimistic projections put total global battery capacity at a fraction of what's needed.

Until storage scales, you need dispatchable power — something that turns on when you need it. That's coal today. It'll be batteries tomorrow. But "tomorrow" is still years away.

The "Despite" Problem

Back to that word.

"China built renewables despite adding coal."

Flip it.

"China built coal to support renewables."

Same facts. Different story.

One frame assumes competition. The other assumes strategy.

Western outlets see the coal additions and read "climate failure." Chinese sources see the same data and read "grid stability." Same gigawatts. Different narrative.

The perception gap on this story scored 7.3 out of 10 in our global scan. That's not a small difference in framing. That's two entirely different understandings of what's happening.

The Real Question Nobody's Asking

Here's what matters: Is China's coal use going up or down?

Capacity? Up. Utilization? Down. Total coal generation? Falling.

In 2025, coal generation in China declined even as new plants came online. Why? Because renewables grabbed market share. Coal plants that used to run at 70% are now running at 50%. Some new plants are barely running at all — they're being built for grid stability, not daily power.

Christine Shearer from Global Energy Monitor put it bluntly: China commissioned more coal in 2025 than India — the world's second-biggest coal builder — built in the last decade.

That sounds damning. Until you realize China's also deploying renewables eight times faster than the US.

It's not either/or. It's both. And the "both" part is what the word "despite" hides.

What Happens Next

China says it'll peak coal use between 2026 and 2030. Permits for new coal plants dropped to 45 GW in 2025 — the lowest since 2021.

That suggests the coal surge is slowing. Not because of international pressure. Because the grid's changing.

Renewables are getting cheaper. Batteries are getting better. Demand for coal as always-on power is fading.

What's left is coal as backup. And once batteries can do that job cheaper and faster, the economics flip.

We're not there yet. But the trendline's clear.

The Bottom Line

China's building coal and renewables at the same time because that's how energy transitions work in the real world.

You don't flip a switch. You overlap systems. You build the new grid while the old one keeps the lights on.

The word "despite" assumes contradiction. The reality is infrastructure.

Coal's not competing with renewables. It's covering for them. Until it doesn't need to.

And when that day comes — when batteries can backstop a grid the size of China's — the coal plants will still be standing. They'll just stop running.

That's not failure. That's patience.

The transition isn't coal OR renewables. It's coal UNTIL batteries.

The question isn't why China's building both. It's how fast they can make "until" arrive.