HONG KONG (Reuters) -China broke its own records for new wind and solar power installations again last year, official data showed on Tuesday, accelerating from a breakneck pace set in 2023 as the country looks to peak its carbon emissions before 2030.
Installed solar and wind power capacity climbed 45.2% and 18%, respectively, in 2024, the National Energy Administration said on Tuesday.
There is now 886.67 GW of installed solar power, up from 609.49 GW in 2023, it said. The United States had 139 GW in 2023, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The installations mean China in July hit its 2030 target six years ahead of schedule, underscoring the speed of its clean energy rollout at a time when President Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris climate deal for a second time and pledged to make it easier to drill for oil and gas.
By 2030, solar power capacity should meaningfully outstrip coal, which still dominates China’s grid, at 1,780 GW to 1,440 GW, state-owned oil major China National Petroleum Company said at a separate briefing.
Last in August, China’s state planner unveiled a three-year plan to upgrade the power system, increasing its use of renewable energy and easing the strain of rising power demand on the national grid.
Wind power capacity touched 520 GW, the administration said, up 18% from a year earlier.
Total installed power generation capacity in 2024 increased by 14.6% year-on-year, reaching 3.35 billion kilowatts.
For 2025, Greenpeace analysts said renewable power could meet all of China’s new power demand growth.
That would “pave the way for China’s power sector to achieve peak emissions by 2025”, according to Greenpeace East Asia Beijing-based project leader Gao Yuhe.
(Reporting by Farah Master, Colleen Howe, Lewis Jackson and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Bernadette Baum)
