China's new coal plant permits set for four-year low in 2025, analysis finds

China's new coal plant permits for 2025 are on track to fall to a four-year low, a new Greenpeace analysis showed yesterday (25 November), indicating that growing use of renewables is cutting into demand for new coal plants.

China permitted 41.8 gigawatts (GW) of new coal plant capacity in the first three quarters of 2025, Greenpeace found. If the current pace continues, 2025 permits would fall to the lowest level since 2021.

The approvals so far in 2025 represent an estimated 171.5 billion yuan to 181.5 billion yuan ($24.2 billion to $25.6 billion) in new coal investment, 85% of which belongs to state-owned enterprises, according to Greenpeace.

China's National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Newly permitted coal plant capacity during China's 14th five-year plan (gigawatts). Source: Greenpeace East Asia

"As the share of renewable energy generation increases, China's additional electricity demand can now be fully met by wind and solar power," said Greenpeace East Asia's climate and energy project manager Gao Yuhe.

"Expectations for coal power generation and profitability have also declined, leading to a drop in approval volumes."

China saw a spike in coal plant permits during 2022 to 2023, after coal and power shortages around that time spooked regulators.

But permits dropped off from 2024 after the crisis eased, the growing renewables fleet started to cover more of the incremental demand, and shortages turned to oversupply.

However, given the earlier surge, total permits for the 2020 to 2025 five-year plan period are already more than twice the total for the previous five years.

There may also be a temporal factor at play given that 2025 is the last year of the current five-year plan and many projects were already approved earlier in the five-year period, according to Gao.

Gao said that if China can continue advancing the construction of its 'new power system' - a term it uses to describe the increasing use of renewables with coal taking on more of a supporting role - then permitting rates could dip even lower in the coming five years, compared to 2025.

China committed in 2021 to phase down its coal consumption during the 2026-2030 period, but China's new climate goals for 2035, released in September, did not put forward new targets for coal.

($1 = 7.0954 Chinese yuan renminbi)