Two new coal power plants get green light in China weekly: report

The local governments in the market approved a total of 106GWs of new capacity in 2022. 

China approved two new coal-fired power plants per week in 2022, Global Energy Monitor reported. 

Over the same period, local governments in the market permitted a total of 106 gigawatts of new coal power capacity. 

This is equivalent to 100 large coal-fired power plants, which is the highest since 2015. This also quadrupled from 2021. 

“If China is going to meet its climate commitments, as we expect, these new coal power plants are going to end up as short-lived and under-utilized malinvestments,” Lauri Myllyvirta, Lead Analyst, CREA, said. 

“To meet China’s goal of peaking CO2 emissions, the most urgent milestone is to scale up investments in clean power generation to cover all of power demand growth, which means declining demand for power generation from coal.”

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The report attributed the increase in new coal power capacity to the electricity shortages last summer due to a historic drought and heatwave.