this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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H1 2025: China installs more solar than rest of the world combined (electrek.co)
submitted 1 week ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to c/energy@slrpnk.net
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In H1 2025, the world added 380 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity – a staggering 64% jump compared to the same period in 2024, when 232 GW came online. China was responsible for installing a massive 256 GW of that solar capacity

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[–] Five@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)
  1. This is solar 'capacity' not actually used solar energy, because
  2. It's being installed in Tibet, far away from the industrial zones of China on the coast, which all run on coal power which
  3. China is the largest consumer of in the world, making up more than 50% of their energy use by kW, while renewables + nuclear make up less than 30%.

China has no intention of switching to renewable energy infrastructure, they are building more coal fired plants and have instituted quotas to ensure that dirtier and more expensive coal is still their primary source of power.

If you want a green world, you can't wait for a politburo to give it to you.

[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

According to globalsolaratlas, solar output is among the highest in Tibet.
China is also known for high voltage DC power transmission over very long distances.
Are you claiming they're building solar power stations and not plugging them to the grid? That doesn't make much sense.

[–] Five@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Are you claiming they’re building solar power stations and not plugging them to the grid?

That's a reasonable assumption based on data from the Chinese Communist Party-controlled National Bureau of Statistics.

That doesn’t make much sense.

It doesn't make much sense to overbuild housing capacity, only to demolish empty or nearly finished buildings either, but that's also something that China is famous for.

Some possible explanations for a metropolis sized garden of dark solar panels are:

  • Tibet is the dumping ground for panels that don't meet export quality controls
  • Panels are cheap enough that using them as shade for desert agriculture makes fiscal sense
  • A make-work project to justify the migration of ethnic Chinese laborers to colonized Tibet
  • A scheme to artificially inflate GDP
  • An authoritarian green-washing propaganda project

These explanations are not mutually exclusive.