China accelerated on coal-fired power plants in 2022

The coal-fired power generation capacity that the Asian giant started building in 2022 was six times that of the rest of the world, according to this report.

This study was carried out by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a research institute based in Finland, and the American NGO Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

"China continues to be the exception to the current global trend of declining coal-fired power plant construction," said GEM analyst Flora Champenois.

“The speed at which projects progressed in 2022, from obtaining permits to construction, was extraordinary,” she judges.

China is, in absolute terms, one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases that cause climate change, such as carbon dioxide (CO2).

President Xi Jinping has pledged that the country will peak its CO2 emissions between 2026 and 2030 and then achieve "carbon neutrality" by 2060.

These pledges are considered essential to keep global temperature rise well below two degrees.

But even if China honors its promises, the current expansion of coal-fired power plants will make meeting those commitments “more complicated and costly,” the study notes.

Vicious circle

In total, according to the report, 106 gigawatts (GW) of new projects were approved in 2022 – the equivalent of two large coal-fired power plants per week.

China depends on coal for almost 60% of its electricity.

Most of the new power plant projects have been approved by provinces hit in the past two years by power shortages due to record heat waves.

A vicious cycle, as increased greenhouse gas emissions accelerate climate change and in turn lead to an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, according to most scientists.

The bulk of the approvals began when the government announced in May 2022 a 10 billion yuan (1,4 billion euros) investment in coal-fired power generation.

"It's the same dynamic as that observed during the previous boom, in 2015," CREA analyst Lauri Myllyvirta told AFP.

"Nobody knows how long the floodgates will remain open, so local authorities are rushing to push through as many projects as possible."

The idea of ​​the authorities is that these new plants can be used as a backup to guarantee a stable electricity supply in the event of failure of renewable energies.

"False idea"

However, faced with the increase in electricity demand in China, some provinces such as Guangdong (south) or Jiangsu (east), where new coal-fired power plants are multiplying, are "lagging behind" in terms of investment. in clean energy, according to the study.

The Asian giant has intensified its investments in recent years in renewables (notably solar, wind, hydroelectric) and nuclear power plants.

If this growth continues to accelerate and electricity demand stabilizes, "massive additions of new coal-fired generation capacity do not necessarily mean that coal use or CO2 emissions in the electricity sector 'electricity will increase', underlines the report.

Renewable energy projects in China, however, have difficulty obtaining access to the necessary land and in some areas the grid cannot absorb all the energy produced, the head of the China Industry Association said in February. photovoltaic.

However, "the main misconception that we can have is that the increase in renewables inevitably leads to a decline in coal," Li Shuo, an activist with Greenpeace China, told AFP.

"That's the case in the rest of the world, but China's energy security needs (as they are) are driving simultaneous growth in wind, solar and coal."