China’s energy transition sees ‘staggering’ progress on renewables — and a coal power boom
China is recognized as the undisputable global leader in renewable energy expansion.
Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images
China is making rapid progress in scaling up clean energy, tentatively boosting hopes that the world’s largest carbon emitter could soon start to curb greenhouse gas pollution.
A massive wave of permits for new coal-fired capacity poses a significant challenge to the country’s climate goals, with Beijing seen as “the glaring exception to the ongoing global decline in coal plant development,” according to the Global Energy Monitor.
Research from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air and GEM published late last month showed China approved the highest number of new coal-fired plants since 2015 last year.
Beijing authorized 106 gigawatts of new coal power capacity in 2022, four times higher than a year earlier and the equivalent of 100 large-fired power plants, the research said.
The extraordinary speed at which China approved the projects was thought to have been driven by energy security considerations, namely electricity shortages following a historic drought and heatwave last summer.
The major additions of new coal-fired capacity may not necessarily mean that carbon emissions from the power sector will increase in China, CREA and GEM analysts said, particularly given the country’s rapid progress in scaling up clean energy.
China was found to have permitted 106 gigawatts of new coal power capacity in 2022, four times higher than a year earlier and the equivalent of 100 large-fired power plants.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
China is recognized as the undisputable global leader in renewable energy expansion, adding new projects to the grid almost as fast as the rest of the world combined in 2022.
The build-out comes as part of the government’s strategy to cut its energy intensity and reach peak emissions “in a well-planned and phased way.”
“When we look around the world today, we can firmly see that the energy transition is in progress,” said Mike Hemsley, deputy director at the Energy Transitions Commission think tank.
“China is building renewables at such a staggering rate [that] it is said to outperform the targets they have set themselves,” Hemsley said at International Energy Week in London last week. He added that around 50% of all renewables built every year were built in China.
“To put that into context, we’ve heard the really admirable goal of Masdar to build 100 gigawatts of renewables by 2030 [but] China every year is building around 75 gigawatts of wind and in excess 100 gigawatts of solar every year,” Hemsley said. Masdar is the UAE’s state-owned renewables developer.
On its current trajectory, Hemsley said that Beijing is on track to reach 1,800 gigawatts of total renewables by 2030. That would be 50% higher than Chinese President Xi Jinping‘s target of 1,200 gigawatts of total renewables by the end of the decade.
“The implications of that being [that] they will outperform their Nationally Determined Contribution, and they are likely to peak emissions way before 2030, some say around 2025 [or] 2026,” Hemsley said, describing this as “really positive news.”
‘A hot, still summer evening is the worry’
The International Energy Agency said earlier this month that, while still rising, global carbon emissions may at least be reaching a plateau.
Energy-related carbon emissions added less than 1% in 2022 to a new high of more than 36.8 billion tons. The increase was less than expected, as renewables helped limit the impact of a global rise in coal and oil consumption. Comparatively, global emissions from energy gained by 6% in 2021.
China’s emissions, the IEA said, were broadly flat in 2022, as Covid-19 measures and declining construction activity led to weaker economic growth.
“Getting China’s emissions to peak has an indispensable role in peaking and declining global emissions — and the success of the overall global effort,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at CREA.
In 2020, China’s Xi announced plans for the world’s second-largest economy to strive for peak carbon emissions in 2030 and for carbon neutrality by 2060.
Myllyvirta told CNBC via telephone that, depending on one’s perspective, China’s climate targets could either be seen as flexible or as lacking in ambition, noting it is important to keep in mind that they allow for a “huge range of outcomes.”
“The grid planners believe that there are going to be some hours or days or weeks during the summer [when] they are going to need more coal-fired power plants,” Myllyvirta said.
China’s power system remains dependent on coal, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel, to meet electricity peak loads and to manage the variability of demand and of clean power supply.
Burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate crisis.
“A hot, still summer evening is the worry. Where are [they] going to get enough power to keep the lights on? That’s why they think they need more coal-fired power plants, because that’s traditionally the way they’ve met the demand in that situation,” Myllyvirta said.
If China is going to meet its climate commitments — as CREA expects — then the think tank says that the country’s new coal power plants will “end up as short-lived and under-utilized malinvestments.”
Just weeks after writing about John Deere’s tried-and-true Gator side-by-side and extolling the virtues of its two-plus decades of design stasis, the engineers at Deere have launched a pair of new, li-ion Gator models that offer all-day power to move people and things all over your property in true, go-anywhere Gator fashion.
John Deere is quick to point out that these new GX side-by-side utility vehicles are not golf carts. Fair enough – while they;re not quite in the same go-anywhere league as Deere’s TH 6×4 Gas or TE 4×2 Gators, the Gator GX and GX Crew offer more than enough capability to handle just about anything you’ll find on a typical campus, golf course, or job site.
To that end, the sturdy composite dump bed, comfortable and supportive high-back foam seats seem credible enough at first glance. And, if you give the new Deere UTVs a second glance, you’ll see a 367-L (13-cu ft) cargo box can haul more than 800 lbs. (~365 kg) of mulch, nursery plantings, building supplies, firewood, animal feed, or tools.
These are serious machines, in other words, ready to get down and do some serious work, but without the noise, vibration, and harmful exhaust emissions of gas.
“The Gator GX lineup offers property owners the opportunity to increase productivity around their properties with less noise, less maintenance and more versatility,” said John Deere Go To Market Manager Eric Halfman. “These utility vehicles are intuitive and durable while offering users the comfort, reliability and convenience they expect from a John Deere Gator.”
The key component in the new GX and GX Crew is the new, 5.4 kWh, 51.2V lithium-ion battery that sends power to a high-efficiency electric drive motor with responsive torque and smooth acceleration. An onboard charger allows for convenient charging anywhere with a standard, grounded 120 outlet, eliminating the need for handling fuel or trips to the gas station and fully charging the 5.4 kWh battery over night, with more than 8 hours of continuous operation on tap that’s extendable with clever use of the new Deere’s regenerative braking.
These new electric Gators are available in classic John Deere green or grey metallic, and start at $17,499 with a whole suite of available accessories to make upfitting a breeze. The company says they’ll be available for order at your local John Deere TriGreen dealer in Q1 of 2026.
Electrek’s Take
I imagine that applying the Gator name to a vehicle that I’d call a glorified golf cart makes me feel something similar to what the Mustang guys feel whenever they see a Mach-E drive past. As such, I’ll give myself the same advice I give them: the people who make the thing decide what makes it worthy of the name, not you.
As such, I’d better get used to it. The good news there, of course, is that it seems like Deere’s latest Gator is going to be more than good enough to win me over. Eventually.
SOURCE | IMAGES: John Deere, via Charged EVs.
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GM has scrapped plans to build $55 million hydrogen fuel cell factory in Detroit, triggering a tsunami of headlines about the General’s future plans for hydrogen. The reality? GM isn’t scaling back its hydrogen efforts. It’s thinking bigger.
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
MARK TWAIN (sort of)
Like the great Sam Clemens, there seems to be plenty of confidence in the greater automotive press that GM’s decision to cancel a $55 millions fuel cell plant on the former Michigan State Fairgrounds site in Detroit. That plant, a JV with Southeast Michigan’s Piston Automotive, would have created ~140 jobs and built compact hydrogen fuel cells for light- and medium-duty vehicles under the Hydrotec brand.
That plan, frankly, was never going to work. It was always a cynical incentive grab and the first fruits of GM’s Hydrotec efforts were so laughably far behind the state of the electric art that the facts themselves blurred the line between satire and reality. Which, of course, didn’t matter – as long as the incentive money (Biden’s Department of Energy awarded GM $30 million in grants for the State Fairgrounds plant) kept flowing.
The new Trump Administration put an end to that flow last week, however, terminating 321 financial awards for clean energy worth $7.56 billion.
“Certainly the decisions of the DOE are an element of that overall climate but not the only driver,” explained GM spokesperson, Stuart Fowle, in a statement. “We want to prioritize the engineering talent and resources and everything we have to continuing to advance EVs given hydrogen is in a different spot.”
That spot is heavy-duty, off-highway, maritime, and data centers.
Bigger trucks, bigger fuel cells
Instead of dying, GM is continuing on the hydrogen fuel cell it’s been on for literal decades – with no plans (publicly, at least) to shutter its Fuel Cell System Manufacturing joint-venture with Honda in Brownstown Township, MI.
That company is not just developing HFCs, they’re out there selling fuel cells today, to extreme-duty, disaster response, and off-highway equipment customers operating far enough off the grid that access to electricity is questionable and to data center developers for whom access to a continuous flow of energy is mission-critical.
Electrek’s Take
Fuel cells like the ones from GM and Honda will continue to seem like a good idea … for about as long as it takes the heavy equipment guys to watch a ZQUIP video.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Detroit News, FreightWaves, Yahoo!Finance.
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EVs are great, and can unlock more transportation convenience with the ease of charging at home. But for apartment-dwellers, this can be a complicated conversation. So a nonprofit called Forth is here to help, through its Charge at Home program.
One of the main benefits of an electric vehicle is in the convenience of owning and charging the car in the place it spends most of its time. Instead of having to go out of your way to fuel it, you just park it at home, in the same place it spends at least 8 hours a day, and you leave the house every day with a full charge.
But this benefit only applies to those with a consistent parking space which they can easily install charging at. When talking about owners who live in apartment buildings, it can sometimes get more complicated.
While certain states have passed “right to charge” laws to give apartment-dwellers a solution for home charging, apartment charging is nevertheless a bit of a patchwork solution so far.
And as a result of this, EV ownership among apartment renters lags behind that of single-family homeowners. It’s clear that apartments are holding back people from buying EVs, and that’s bad – lots of people live in apartments, and the gas those cars use pollutes the air just as much as any other.
Certain areas where EVs have hit a point of critical mass (namely, the large California cities) have pretty good EV ownership among renters, but it could still be better. And residents are clamoring more and more for easy EV charging in apartment communities.
So, Forth, a nonprofit advocating for equitable access to clean transportation, set up a program called Charge at Home, which is meant to connect renters, apartment building owners or other decisionmakers with resources to help install chargers at multifamily properties.
The site lets you select your situation – a resident or a decisionmaker for a new or existing multifamily development – and then gives you access to tools for your specific situation, whether you be a resident and developer.
The site houses links to help design a multifamily project, find electricians, inform you about right to charge laws or available incentives, and provide case studies, among others.
Charge at Home also hosts roundtable webinars periodically, and includes a library of past webinars with the information you need.
There are a lot of considerations for each of these projects, so it can be helpful to have someone with experience to help you go over it all. Personally, when talking to friends about getting an EV, charging considerations are usually the thing that takes up the bulk of the conversation.
So if the toolkits are still too daunting for you, Charge at Home is offering free charging consultations for multifamily developers, owners, property managers and HOAs.
The charging consultations will last through at least April 2026 – but it wouldn’t hurt to get your requests in soon. Forth may still offer consultations afterwards, but it all depends on funding availability (the program was previously funded by the Department of Energy, which has taken a turn). Regardless, the website will remain up for people to submit questions and find information, whether or not free consultations stick around.
But at the very least, as Forth points out, whether a multifamily development is interested in having EV charging at this moment or not, any developer should think about having the infrastructure, conduit and capacity ready to go for future install of EV chargers, and should consider the needs of current residents who are likely already considering EVs today.
It’s going to be necessary to install this capacity at some point, and doing so earlier can help save money down the line, make your development more attractive to renters today, and allow more renters to make the switch to cleaner transportation which helps air quality and to reduce climate change, both of which harm everyone on the planet.
Head on over to Forth’s Charge at Home site to get access to all the above resources – and to sign up for a consultation before the end of April if you’re a multifamily developer, owner, property manager or HOA.
Update: This article has been updated to account for an extension in program availability.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve long said that the only real problem with EVs is the problem of access to consistent charging for people who don’t have their own garage. Whether this be apartment-dwellers, street-parkers or the like, the electric car charging experience is often less-than-ideal outside of single family homes, at least in North America.
There are workarounds available, like charging at work, or using Superchargers in “third places” where you often spend time, but these still aren’t optimal. The best thing is just to charge your car wherever it spends most of its time, which is your home. When you do that, EVs outshine everything in convenience.
We’ve highlighted some projects before which showed how reasonable it can be to install charging for developments. Every project is going to have its complexities, but when you see projects like this condo complex that managed to install chargers for just $405 per parking spot, all of a sudden it becomes a no-brainer not to have EV charging.
But the fact is, there just aren’t enough apartment complexes out there which have EV charging. So if Forth’s Charge At Home program can help residents or landlords with that, it can go a long way towards solving the only real problem with EVs. Click here to check it out.
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Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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