Surging Green-Energy Production Forces Coal Even L
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Despite its reliance on coal-fired energy to power its massive manufacturing sector, China has made such significant strides in green-energy production that the fossil fuel’s contribution to China’s energy mix has fallen even lower. Renewable energy production in the country surpassed its electricity demand growth in May as coal’s share in China’s energy mix dropped to a record 53%, while renewables produced a historic 44% of the country’s electricity in March.
Analysis by Asia Society Policy Institute fellow Lauri Myllyvirta also found that greenhouse-gas emissions in China may have peaked last year. Myllyvirta also serves as a lead analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). His recently published analysis noted that solar-power generation expanded by 78% or 41 TWh and represented more than 50% of the renewable energy produced in May. Hydropower also bounced back from the 2022–2023 droughts and increased by 39% or 34TWh.
The east Asian country is infamous for its world-leading emissions and even made news in recent years for approving a record number of coal projects even though it has committed to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. However, China has also made record-breaking investments in clean energy and has undoubtedly deployed a world-leading amount of renewable energy infrastructure over the past few years.
The result of these investments is a surge in green-energy production that has seen coal play an increasingly smaller role in China’s energy mix. Coal’s share in China’s energy mix has fallen to 53% in May compared to 60% in May 2023. Myllyvirta included new utilization data in his analysis, and his findings challenged the notion that the recent deployment of renewable energy infrastructure across China has resulted in grid congestion.
Writing for Carbon Brief, Myllyvirta noted that while many media reports posited that China would experience grid constraints due to its rapidly increasing renewable energy capacity, new data indicated that this is unlikely. Green-energy capacity is still ahead of electricity demand in China, and as power production by fossil fuels continues to fall, renewables will have even more room to grow. China has already seen a 3.6% dip in carbon-dioxide emissions, thanks to the energy sector’s reduced fossil fuel use.
Myllyvirta’s analysis indicates that the trends behind the fall in cement and fossil-fuel emissions in March 2024 could endure for the time being. If the deployment of wind and solar capacity continues at current rates, 2023 could be the peak year for China’s emissions as renewables steadily replace fossil fuels in energy generation.
As many more companies such as First Tellurium Corp. (CSE: FTEL) (OTCQB: FSTTF) continue to avail the metals needed to power the green-energy transition around the world, more countries could see their use of fossil fuels decrease as renewables take over.
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