BEIJING (AP) — Even as China's solar and wind power expansion advanced rapidly in 2025, the Asian giant opened many more coal-fired power plants than it had in recent years, raising concerns about whether the world's biggest emitter will reduce carbon dioxide emissions enough to limit climate change.

More than 50 large coal-fired units — individual sets of boilers and turbines — came online in 2025. with a generating capacity of one gigawatt or more—compared with less than 20 a year over the previous decade, according to a research report released Tuesday. Depending on energy use, one gigawatt can power anywhere from several hundred thousand to more than 2 million homes.

Overall, China added 78 gigawatts of new coal power capacity, a sharp increase from previous years, according to the joint report by the Energy and Clean Air Research Center, which studies air pollution and its impacts, and Global Energy Monitor, which develops databases that track energy trends.

“The scale of the construction is staggering,” said Christine Shearer, co-author of the Global Energy Monitor report. “In 2025 alone, China commissioned more coal power capacity than India did in the entire last decade.”

At the same time, even larger additions of wind and solar capacity reduced coal's share of total power generation last year. Power from coal fell about 1% as growth in cleaner energy sources covered all of the increase in electricity demand last year.

China added 315 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity and 119 gigawatts of wind power in 2025, according to statistics from the government's National Energy Administration.

Blackouts in 2021-2022 prompted construction of coal plants

The enormous growth in wind and solar power raises the question: Why is China still building coal-fired thermoelectric plants and, by most analyses, many more than it really needs?

The answer is complicated.

China is at an earlier stage of development than the United States or Europe, so it needs more energy to continue growing. If more of the country's 1.4 billion people move into the middle class, more people will be able to afford air conditioners and washing machines.

Electricity is needed to keep China's factories running and to meet the high energy demands of artificial intelligence, a government priority as it seeks to make the country a technology leader.

Power shortages in parts of China in 2021 and 2022 reinforced long-standing concerns about energy security. Some factories temporarily stopped production and one city imposed rotating blackouts.

The government's response was to signal that it wanted more coal-fired power plants, which led to an increase in applications and permits for their construction.

That 2022-2023 increase fueled the big jump in capacity last year as new units came online, said Qi Qin, an analyst at the Center for Energy and Clean Air Research and another co-author of the report. “Once permits are issued, projects are difficult to reverse,” he said.

Construction began on 83 gigawatts of coal power last year, according to the report, suggesting that a lot of new capacity could come online this year.

Excess coal capacity could slow transition to wind and solar energy

The government's position is that coal provides a stable back-up to sources such as wind and sun, which are affected by climate and time of day. The shortage in 2022 stemmed in part from a drought that affected hydropower, a major energy source in western China.

Coal should “play an important supporting and balancing role” in the years ahead, the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planning agency, said in guidance issued last year on how to make coal plants cleaner and more efficient.

The Coal Transportation and Distribution Association of China, an industry group, said last week that coal-generated power would remain essential to the stability of the electricity system, even as other energy sources replace it.

The risk of building so much coal capacity is that it could delay the transition to cleaner energy sources, Qin said. Political and financial pressure could keep plants running, leaving less room for other energy sources, it said.

The report urged China to accelerate the retirement of aging and inefficient coal plants and to commit in its next five-year plan, to be approved in March, to ensuring that emissions from the power sector do not increase between 2025 and 2030.

“Whether the expansion of coal power in China ultimately translates into higher emissions will depend on…whether the role of coal power is truly limited to backup and support rather than baseload generation,” Qin said.

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Associated Press video journalist Olivia Zhang contributed to this report.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.