China’s solar capacity now tops coal — but coal still produces far more electricity

The useful part

It's a remarkable milestone, but the fossil fuel still generates far more electricity than solar does. It shows a line representing solar energy in China rising improbably over the last decade, until at last it overtakes another line that represents the nation's vast coal fleet. It proves that the nation has been taking serious steps to clean up its coal-heavy grid, contra those who use China's enormous emissions to justify climate complacency elsewhere.

How it works

• While there's nothing wrong with the data — solar really has overtaken coal in terms of capacity — the story is more complicated than a tidy chart can express.
• Plants don't run at full tilt, and experts use a metric called capacity factor to express how much electricity a facility actually produces compared with its potential output.
• What's certain, however, is that the world needs to radically reduce the use of fossil fuels — and build a lot more carbon-free energy and vehicles.
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• Democratic governors are increasingly urging data center developers to offer community benefit agreements as backlash to their construction expands.

What to take from it

In China, coal has an average capacity factor of around 50 %. The yawning gap between capacity and generation is, in part, the result of physical differences between coal and solar. The country has built solar — and wind — so quickly that it is struggling to metabolize the renewable energy sources into its grid.

Example or evidence

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• Due largely to these constraints, China had to curtail — or leave unused — more than one-quarter of its wind and solar power in the first half of this year.
• As a result, 360 terawatt-hours of carbon-free power went to waste, an amount larger than the U.K.'s entire electricity use last year.
• So, yes, solar has won the capacity race in China, and that is a truly remarkable milestone.

Details worth keeping

An eye-popping new chart made the rounds this week. One article featuring this chart came with the following headline: ​ " Solar surpasses coal in China, becomes top power source." This is exactly the type of chart a person concerned about climate change could hope to see — one that would have defied the imagination of analysts and onlookers even a few years ago. To understand why, you'll have to bear with some technical definitions.

Related coverage

• Pandaily: National Energy Administration data show China's installed solar capacity reached 1.286 billion kilowatts by end-July, overtaking coal's 1.285 billion kilowatts to become the nation's largest power source.
• Electrek: China's clean energy machine is now moving so fast that it's meeting soaring electricity demand and pushing coal power backward at the same time. more…
• Renewableenergyworld: On this episode of the This Week in Cleantech podcast, Tim McDonnell of Semafor discusses how solar has overtaken coal as China's top power source for the first time, after a massive buildout.