The scale of Chinese production since 2010 has driven the price of these technologies down by 60 to 90 percent, the researchers found. And last year, more than 90 percent of wind and solar projects commissioned worldwide produced power more cheaply than the cheapest available fossil-fuel alternative, they said. That cost advantage might have seemed laughable before China began pumping billions of dollars of subsidies into the sector.
And last year, more than 90 percent of wind and solar projects commissioned worldwide produced power more cheaply than the cheapest available fossil-fuel alternative,
This is NOT because of China, All the technologies for the multi MegaWatt wind turbines were developed in Europe, and the race to make them cheaper per Watt also clearly is more due to European innovation than Chinese cheap production. There has been heavy competition among western producers pressing the price ever lower per kW. This has been done by making larger more efficient turbines, where Europe has been clearly in the lead for decades.
On that front China merely joined the race, and the European Vestas remain the world largest manufacturer of wind turbines in the world, and AFAIK Siemens is the worlds largest manufacturer of offshore wind turbines.
China is of course a formidable competitor, but they have in no way surpassed us on wind turbines yet.
On Solar China is making massive amounts of good cheap panels, but both Germany and South Korea make better panels, that aren’t that much more expensive.
“China is the engine,” said Richard Black, the report’s editor. “And it is changing the energy landscape not just domestically but in countries across the world.”
Nope, that’s just not true, China is a major participant/player now, but the engine that drives green energy was started in Europe way before China became a major factor.
I know from personal experience, because we’ve been working on that shit since the 70’s, and made very good progress on it way before China became a factor.
To say China is driving this because they are big today, is like saying Toyota is behind the success of cars around the world. Both are nonsense, Toyota make good cars but that does not make them the “engine” of car production.
China also make good products for green energy, but that doesn’t make them the engine. This development would very obviously have happened without China, because it was already in full swing before China was a factor.you talk about the innovations a lot, but that’s not everything there is to it.
China massively subsidized its solar panel production for 20 years, at a loss. The reason they did that is because they ideologically believed that it would eventually pay off. Without these massive investments, solar might not have grown so much and might still be more expensive than fossil fuels due to a lack of economies of scale.
If you take china out of the game, you end up with solar panels that are not the cheapest source of energy, and that massively changes the outcome. It is only because solar panels are so cheap today that we see so many of them being installed. China was simply brave enough to invest billions and billions of dollars into them, instead of leaving it to the free market. That is what china did well.
Interesting: looking at the https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transition-review-2025/how-chinas-transition-is-reshaping-the-global-ener/ section of the report, they keep combining “solar and wind” as one category, and evidence suggests that China is a ways ahead in research measured by patents deemed competitive in solar while a similar amount behind in wind, though they are far ahead in both when measured by research citation counts. The sheer size of China might also be at play here.
Yes the claim of the article is obviously false regarding wind turbines, I’m not denying they make their own developments, maybe some are necessary to avoid older patents IDK. But there is no way they are the driver of this development, just like Japan or Toyota was never the driver of development of better cars. Even if arguably they made the best and the most cars.
On batteries Tesla was actually first with their MEGA factory, and although China is now the biggest producer of solar panels and batteries, they were never the driver behind this development.The drivers were technologies first developed in the west, and China just became the main production hub of batteries and panels. if it hadn’t been China, it would still have been developed and produced at a growing pace for an ever growing market anyway.
By your argument would you say that Japan and Korea are the engines of the lithium ion batteries?
No, lithium batteries were developed over several decades before they reached a level where they became stable and affordable enough for mass consumption.
There is not a single point that is the driver of such trends, but I’d say that the research resulting in batteries becoming good enough for ever more use cases, is a major part of what drives adoption.
And on that point I’d agree that China is ahead. With BYD and CATL leading the development of better car batteries.
But they are not engines drivings nations away from fossil fuels. Because for instance Europe has been working on that shit since the 70’s.
Sure China is a part of it now, I’ll even admit they are a significant part, but they were not at any point in time the driver for it, and Japan and Korea weren’t either.It would be more fair to say Denmark was a driver for the adoption of wind turbines, because Denmark was the country that invested money in developing the technology basically from scratch, to enable the big MegaWatt turbines we have today. Something that was developed in Denmark when most didn’t care to, and the few that did failed to make commercially viable turbines. And the Danish company Vestas now also has the world biggest wind turbine production.
But although Denmark were a driver, they aren’t anymore, because wind turbines can now and are developed and built all over the world.The same with batteries, batteries are developed and built all over the world, with Samsung, Panasonic, LG also being reputable producers of batteries, China is just the biggest production hub, and on some types of batteries they are ahead. But China is not the engine driving this industry, it could be said to be mostly increased demand for electric cars, and electric cars is not a country.
I’m concurring on wind and smart grids but dissenting on solar and batteries.
I’m not saying China isn’t a major factor, and in the lead in some ways, especially on batteries.
I’m just saying that being in the lead doesn’t necessarily make you thee driving factor.
Which I thought I gave a good example on with Toyota. Where it’s easy to see how ridiculous the statement is.The article didn’t say China is driving its development (like you say Europe would have researched regardless); it says China is driving its adoption including in foreign nations. The article does leave out European research’s contribution to the cheap production of wind turbines, but the article’s claim is that China’s production and foreign policy is driving new adoption.
China is driving its adoption
That’s exactly what I responded to. And as I’ve already written, China being the #1 manufacturer on volume doesn’t drive adoption any more than Toyota making the most cars are driving adoption of cars.
Adoption is very much driven by the technologies that have made the technology feasible to begin with. And that was for decades mostly driven by Europe.It’s a nonsense way to understand the adoption of green energy sources which have many other factors than slightly cheaper production in China driving adoption.
As I mentioned, there are other countries making panels that are competitive, obviously if China stopped making panels, those makers would scale up their production to replace it.
For instance Hyundai are very competitive, and offer 25 year warranty against typically 10 years for Chinese panels. They have very low degradation and cost less than 10% more than a typical Chinese panel.
There are perfectly good options without China.What’s driving adoption is the fact that the technologies have matured and become affordable, which would have happened anyway.
There is no doubt that adoption is NOT driven by China, and very very obviously not by China alone. Anymore than adoption of oil was driven by Saudi Arabia.
Toyota isn’t driving adoption of cars because 1. cars have already saturated the market, so there’s no need for ambassadorship and commercials assume people need cars 2. Toyota has 14% market share, not 70%. Same for Saudi crude. None of these are true for wind or solar or batteries.
have matured and become affordable, which would have happened anyway.
You don’t show that this would have happened anyway. The article’s point is that China’s production played a large role in making it affordable and their research a somewhat smaller one.
Good on China.
They may be an authoritarian surveillance state, but at least they’re not a mentally ill death cult who worship pedophiles.
That we know of
They have a long term vision and the means to see it through. Sometimes that too ends badly but for some things it works better than aiming for next quarter or next election.
We’re
going to beso far behind.the thing is that what really drives manufacturing is mostly two things: a growing market and cheap supply of energy.
If energy was free, approximately every country on earth would dramatically increase the amount of goods it produces. And that’s what’s happening right now: As solar power becomes cheaper and cheaper, more and more companies will have an incentive to produce more goods, simply because the costs for resources (energy) are dropping. That, in turn, stimulates consumerism.
I know a few people who drink the right wing coolaid and hate renewables, but they also think China is a great place and outsmarting western democracies at every turn. Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.
Good thing solar and other renewables are still going strong some placed at least.
China is also building coal power at an unprecedented rate. https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-power-plants-reached-10-year-high-in-2024/
The article mentions that and explains it as gandalf_ did.
they build coal power capacity, i.e. power plants that can turn coal into electricity.
the twist is, they’re not actually using that capacity. They produced just as much electricity from coal this year than last, even though the capacity for production increased. In other words, as they’re building more capacity, they’re utilizing it to smaller degrees, sothat the total production stays the same.
Could someone just invent tiny cold fusion reactors already so we can skip all this bullshit with the oil rich doing everything they can to hold back progress just so they can continue raking in billions only because they are lucky enough to own land that has a bunch of old dead shit under it.
i don’t know about tiny cold fusion reactors but we definitely already have a big hot fusion reactor in the sky and we’re already using it; in fact, this article talks about exactly that.
that’s Fallout
Noone ever believes me when I claim that days of the fossil fuels are numbered.
People have been saying this for generations. Yet here we are.
The reason: while alternative energy has grown very rapidly which gives the impression of replacing fossil fuels, demand also increased (maybe faster) so the ratio is similar. Also, fossil fuels can’t be replaced everywhere. Think heavy duty machinery, most aircraft. Reduce demand and consumption (a topic of debate on its own of how and what) and maybe the ratios would be more on the alternative side.
But also consider human development. Someone always argues that China has also been building more coal power plant. However it’s reasonable when you’re bringing more of your population out of poverty. China has developed into a modern economy/society far faster than any other country in history and that’s a positive thing even if they rapidly increased energy consumption.
More importantly all indications are China passing peak carbon emissions in the next year or two, far sooner than they committed to. How is everyone else doing on their commitments?
I’m no fan of the abuses of their authoritarianism, but give credit where it’s due: they made some great decisions with renewable energy and followed through aggressively to all of our benefit
China is a special case, they not only have cheapest manufacturing in the world, but their geopolitical situation heavily favors independence from coal and oil imports
Sadly the number remains quite large.
I recently watched a video with an interesting point on fracking ……
Graphing wells by cost and longevity of production, new oil wells are not only more expensive but also don’t supply as much or last as long. Each time we pay more to get less and ends sooner.
Technology might continue to make additional mineral resources newly exploitable but the math is not on the side of it continuing to be feasible
Not only that but the economics of scale are kicking in for solar power and batteries. While oil and gas are more and more expensive, solar power and batteries are getting cheaper
