energy transition - Klimarennen - Peking installs double the amount of renewable energy as the rest of the world
At the expansion of renewable energy, Beijing leaves the rest of the world behind. According to a study by "Global Energy Monitor" (GEM) from San Francisco, China is currently building solar and wind power plants with a total capacity of 339 Gigawatts, nearly double that of the rest of the world. Regenerative energies are among the areas that China calls "new productive forces" and in which the country wants to take a leading position.
GEM assumes that China will reach its goals by the end of 2024 and then have 1200 Gigawatts of solar and wind power at its disposal. The main driver is the expansion of decentralized installations on rooftops under the "Solar Energy for the Entire County" program. This shifts the installed capacity towards densely populated provinces, where most of the electricity is consumed.
Renewable Energy Fluctuates
The Chinese face the same challenges as the rest of the world with regard to the fluctuations of renewable energy generation. The boom in renewables goes hand in hand with the approval and construction of new coal-fired power plants. Unlike in Germany, electricity consumption in China continues to rise. Despite the boom, it is not possible to cover 50% of this increase through renewable energies.
Coal remains an important component of the Chinese energy mix. The country can protect itself from international crises and supply problems with coal and balance out the fluctuations of renewable energies. In Germany, new gas-fired power plants are being planned. They are cleaner than coal-fired power plants, but gas is still a fossil fuel.
Battery Build-out Moves Slowly
To cleanly balance out the generation, electricity must be stored. Battery storage is one of the central future technologies in China. In 2023, 10 billion Euros were invested in grid-scale batteries. This is almost a quadrupling of the value of 2022, but the investments remain low in relation to the expansion of solar and wind energy.
The massive expansion brings challenges for the rest of the world as well. If Beijing is currently building twice the capacity that the rest of the world is, it can also be translated that the Chinese domestic market accounts for 66% of the global market. Competitors, who rely on a much smaller home market, find it difficult to keep up with production and development in China due to economies of scale.
In the context of energy transition, Germany is considering the construction of new gas-fired power plants, despite gas being a fossil fuel, as a cleaner alternative to coal-fired power plants. Despite the significant investment in grid-scale batteries in China in 2023, which quadrupled from the previous year, the development of battery storage technology still lags behind the rapid expansion of solar and wind power capacity in the country.
