China's fossil fuelled power drops for the first time in 10 years as a result of renewables
China's coal-based thermal energy generation in 2025 fell for the first time in 10 years, according to government data released on Monday. Growing renewable generation?met growth of electricity demand, even though?overall consumption?hit a new record.
This data is a good sign for China's decarbonisation as it sets out to reach its carbon emission peak by 2030. The coal production reached a new record last year.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, thermal electricity generated by coal-fired power plants with a small portion from natural gas fell 1% to 6.29 trillion Kilowatt-hours in 2025.
The data revealed that it fell even more in December, by 3.2% from the previous year.
The data represents the output of industrial enterprises with annual revenues exceeding 20 million yuan (2.87 million dollars).
The National Energy Administration announced?Saturday? that China's consumption of electricity had increased 5%, reaching a new record. It has now exceeded 10 trillion kWh.
This was more than the combined consumption in 2024 of the European Union (EU), Russia, India, and Japan, due to rapid growth in internet services and EV manufacturing.
The NEA data provides a more complete picture of energy use than NBS, which excludes smaller-scale renewables,?particularly solar. According to the NBS statistics, power generation in 2016 reached 9.72 trillions kWh. This is an increase of 2.2% over 2024.
The NBS data revealed that hydropower continued to grow at a steady rate. It grew by 4.1% in December, and by 2.8% for the entire year. Nuclear power output rose by 3.1 percent in December, and 7.7% between 2025 and 2025.
The growth of renewables is expected to continue apace, and so it is unlikely that thermal power generation will increase in 2026.
Feng Dongbin is vice-general manager of Fenwei Digital Information Technology. The company operates the Chinese coal analytics platform Sxcoal. (Reporting and editing by Colleen Fullick; Reporting by Colleen Waye)
(source: Reuters)
