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China's Continuing Renewable Energy Revolution: Global Implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Hao Tan  and
John A. Mathews
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Summary

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China's renewable energy revolution is powering ahead, with the year 2013 marking an important inflection point where the scales tipped more towards electric power generated from water, wind and solar than from fossil fuels and nuclear. This means that its energy security is being enhanced, while carbon emissions from the power sector can be expected to soon start to fall, we argue.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 12 , March 2014 , e4
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014

References

Notes

1 In 2013 China produced 1044 billion kWh of renewable electrical energy, from hydro, wind and solar PV sources. In the same year Germany produced 579 billion kWh from all sources, and France produced 476 billion kWh from thermal and nuclear sources – giving total electrical energy produced in France and Germany of 1055 billion kWh, marginally above what China produced from renewables alone.

2 The CEC's statistics are available here (in Chinese) and here (in Chinese) at CEC.org

The FERC data for full-year 2013 are available here at UtilityDrive.com

3 We are using data from CEC, issued in Feb 2014. Estimates of 100 GW capacity added were issued by media such as the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) (click here for a report citing the BNEF data at RenewEconomy.com); these will no doubt be revised as the new data are absorbed.

4 See for example the article by Dieter Helm, ‘The Kyoto approach has failed’, Nature, 491 (29 Nov 2012), pp. 663-665.

5 See Cohen's blog entry here

6 The problem with the recent generation data comes in the final figure for the year. The total 243.8 TWh in the year is consistent with the contributions from each source (in terms of differences between 2012 and 2013 levels); but it is not consistent with the difference in overall generating totals for the years 2012 (4987 TWh) and 2013 (5322 TWh), where the difference is seen to be 335 TWh. Clearly 243.8 TWh is not the same as 335 TWh. While part of the discrepancy is due to rounding errors, it is up to the CEC to provide more data so that this issue can be resolved. It is clearly a matter of some significance as interpretations of the direction of China's energy strategy depend on it.

7 Here is what Cohen states, in clear misrepresentation of our purpose and our statement. “In a January 4 article entitled ‘China Roars Ahead with Renewables’, for example, The Ecologist magazine claimed: ‘Reports of China opening a huge new coal fired power station every week belie the reality – China is the new global powerhouse for renewable energy…It means that the growth of its electric power system – that underpins the entire modernisation and industrialisation of the country – is now being powered more by renewables than by fossil fuels.’ The report concluded, ‘These results reveal just how strongly China is swinging behind renewables as its primary energy resource’.” Click here for Cohen's column.

8 Click here for an elaboration of this argument by John Mathews and Erik Reinert.