China’s installations of wind and solar in May are enough to generate as much electricity as Poland, as the world’s second-biggest economy breaks further records with itsrapid buildup of renewable energy infrastructure.
China installed 93 GW of solar capacity last month – almost 100 solar panels every second, according to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Wind power installations reached 26 GW, the equivalent of about 5,300 turbines.
While estimates for the amount of power generated by solar panels and wind turbines vary depending on their location and weather conditions, Myllyvirta calculated that May’s installations alone could generate as much electricity as Poland, Sweden or the United Arab Emirates.
Between January and May, China added 198 GW of solar and 46 GW of wind, enough to generate as much electricity as Indonesia or Turkey.
“We knew China’s rush to install solar and wind was going to be wild but WOW,” Myllyvirta wrote on social media.
China’s installed solar photovoltaic capacity has now surpassed 1,000 GW for the first time, equivalent to half of the world’s total installed solar capacity.
The record numbers come as researchers and former government officials from the US are in Beijing to participate in unofficial climate talks.
Climate negotiations between the two superpowers have been fraught since Donald Trump entered the White House in January. Trump withdrew from many major environmental protection treaties,such as the Paris climate agreementwhich aims to limit global warming to well below two degrees celsius above preindustrial levels. The US president said at the time: “The United States will not sabotage its own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”
China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases but is also theworld’s biggest supplier and installer of clean energy technology.
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, is increasingly connecting China’s climate ambitions with the growth of the clean energy technology sector, which he sees as vital toboosting China’s flagging economy. In a speech in April, Xi highlighted the fact that in the past five years China has built “the world’s largest and most complete new energy industry chain”. The term new energy refers to renewables and supporting technology such as batteries.
But the hyper-competitiveness of China’s economy is also putting pressure on clean energy firms, with prices of solar panels barely covering the cost of production.
In the first quarter of this year, China’s five biggest solar companies reported a combined loss of over 8bn yuan, according to Bloomberg. At a recent conference, Yang Liyou, the general manager of Jinneng Technology, described the industry as being in a “death cycle”, according to Chinese media.