Recent reports confirm that China commissioned including more than 50 large-scale units.

Specifically, according to a joint analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM), China commissioned 78 GW of new coal- fired power capacity in 2025, the highest annual total in a decade. This included more than 50 large coal units (each with 1 GW or more generating capacity), up sharply from fewer than 20 such large units per year in the prior decade.

Construction starts were also high at 83 GW (down slightly from 98 GW in 2024).

New project proposals (including reactivations) hit a record 161 GW.

Overall pipeline (permitted or under construction) stood at ~291 GW by year-end.

Critics highlight the tension with global climate goals, given China’s role as the top CO₂ emitter and holder of ~71% of global coal power under development.

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China goes gangbusters building 52 big coal plants in 2025

From CFACT

By Joanne Nova

It’s almost like China doesn’t give a toss about climate change, eh?

Just quietly, while everyone was gushing tears over a two-year extension to a fifty-year-old Australian plant, China added a gargantuan number of brand-new coal plants.

Australia’s total coal fleet stands at 26 gigawatts in capacity. Yet China added three times that capacity in a single year.

Overall, China brought 78 gigawatts of new coal power capacity online in 2025, a sharp uptick from previous years, according to the joint report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor.

The graph below represents how many gigawatts were added, but only in the largest turbines size. China added 52 gigawatts of energy from one gigawatt units. Presumably the rest of the 78GW came from smaller sized turbines. And here’s the thing, while everyone will pretend this is the peak and tell us “it will decline soon”, another 83 gigawatts of coal plants has already started construction, and another 161GW is newly proposed or applied for.

These coal plants are apparently only being used at 50% capacity, but the thing is, if China ever needs to ramp up its energy supply, like say, in a time of war, it could double it in days.

But China is just replacing the old dirty coal plants, right?

That’s what they want you to think.  See the tiny black bars, top left, marked “Retired”

All the coal power Australia has built in the last 50 years, China just effectively added that in the last four months.

According to a research report published on February 3, more than 50 large coal-fired power plants will be connected to the grid in 2025. These are individual boiler and turbine sets with a capacity of at least one gigawatt. In the ten years prior, the number was less than 20 per year. Depending on consumption, one gigawatt can supply several hundred thousand to over two million households with electricity. — Euronews

Euronews asks – if wind and solar are booming in China …why is it building so many new coal plants?

The answer apparently is that there were blackouts in 2021-22, and it takes a few years to get through the paperwork accelerate the construction. (Thinking about the timing, unless they can build coal plants in three years, they must have already had a set of coal plants in the approval or construction phase, and they pushed them through faster than expected to create such a boom). Supposedly this is that wave of new plants in response to those blackouts.

h/t to Eric Worrall at WUWT, and Pierre Gosselin at NoTricksZone, plus Leith van Onselen on Macroeconomics.

PS: For those in Perth — I’ll be speaking on Wednesday night next week in Belmont. More details to follow on that soon.

This article originally appeared at JoNova