China slashed its thermal plant approvals by nearly 80 percent in the first half of 2024, revealed a leading environmental group on Tuesday.

According to a Greenpeace East Asia report, coal-fired plant approvals declined to 10.34 gigawatts in the first six months of 2024 from 50.4 GW during the same period last year.

The report also found China’s combined wind and solar capacity of 11.8 terawatts exceeded coal capacity of 11.7 TW for the first time in the first half and made up 84.2 percent of all new grid-connected capacity.

“China has pumped the brakes on coal so far in 2024. Wind and solar expansion continues to be strong. Since 2022, we have seen a troubling trend of coal approvals increasing despite renewable energy growth, which should displace coal. We may now be seeing a turning point,” said Gao Yuhe, project lead of Beijing-based Greenpeace East Asia.

However, a concerning trend is that 71.4 percent of new 2024 approvals were coal-fired power facilities with generation capacities above 660 MW. Incidentally, 70.73 percent of the new projects in 2023 were about 1 GW.

“These facilities are quite large. Coal facilities do not nimbly switch on and offline. And large facilities are particularly inefficient in coming online in terms of time, money, or total emissions,” said Yuhe in the study.

She added: “This somewhat contradicts the stated purpose of using these facilities to support periods of peak energy demand. We are seeing a positive trend in decreasing new approvals. But the new approvals themselves are quite concerning.”

The majority of new 2024 coal approvals came from a few provinces, including 2 GW in Anhui, 2 GW in Jiangxi, and 1.32 GW in Xinjiang. Anhui has continued extensive new coal approvals for three years running, approving 19.18 GW from January 2022 through June 2024.

“Money spent building new coal power plants should be spent on improving renewable grid connectivity. It takes around 20 months for a coal plant to go online if construction isn’t delayed,” added Yuhe.

She further pointed out that developing smart grid solutions to mitigate the burden of peak demand is not only a faster route to energy security but also paves the way for the energy transition. It’s a faster solution now that creates conditions to lower risk later.

As China navigates these complex waters, the world watches, hoping for a successful transition to a more sustainable and clean energy future.