4 ms·

China breaks more records with surge in solar and wind power

19 points by testing22321 1y ago

melling 1y ago
“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” That is impressive. The US is abandoning some of our clean energy goals. Both public and private: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-corporate-climate-broken-promises/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-corporate-climate-br...
- jfengel 1y ago
  China wants to be in the future. America wants to be in the past. Its current political slogan is explicitly backward-looking. I genuinely don't know which approach will pay off, but I've got some guesses.
msgodel 1y ago
I'd imagine solar panels are about 25-50% cheaper over there than here between tariffs and shipping. (solar tariffs on China have been in place for at least ten years now AFAIK, they're separate from the other tariff stuff that's been going on.) If you like the independence/flexibility solar is marginally interesting. There it's probably a no-brainer.
- epistasis 1y ago
  Panels are not the biggest cost of solar anymore, and even in the US they make a pretty cheap building material per square foot. Installation, mounting, etc. all add up to be a big chunk of the cost of solar these days. Even making the physical panel size bigger drives down system cost, merely by reducing the number of panels that need to be mounted.
  - raincom 1y ago
    What is preventing from using larger panels? Transportation, manufacturing, reluctance by installers, or something else?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
zeristor 1y ago
Clean power is one part of it. Other parts are - HVDC cables to move the power to where it is needed. - grid scale batteries to buffer power, and even it out. - transformers. Hitherto grid transformers were all built as bespoke parts, but this is being standardised for lower lead time and economies of scale.
zeristor 1y ago
Another point is that China is strategically dependent on imports on gas and oil through the Malacca Straight. Green energy reduces that dependence, as does the use of electric vehicles. I don’t have any idea how much this is a consideration, I imagine it is quite a powerful one.

19 points by testing22321 1y ago

“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” That is impressive. The US is abandoning some of our clean energy goals. Both public and private: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-corporate-climate-broken-promises/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-corporate-climate-br...

jfengel 1y ago
China wants to be in the future. America wants to be in the past. Its current political slogan is explicitly backward-looking. I genuinely don't know which approach will pay off, but I've got some guesses.

msgodel 1y ago

I'd imagine solar panels are about 25-50% cheaper over there than here between tariffs and shipping. (solar tariffs on China have been in place for at least ten years now AFAIK, they're separate from the other tariff stuff that's been going on.) If you like the independence/flexibility solar is marginally interesting. There it's probably a no-brainer.

epistasis 1y ago
Panels are not the biggest cost of solar anymore, and even in the US they make a pretty cheap building material per square foot. Installation, mounting, etc. all add up to be a big chunk of the cost of solar these days. Even making the physical panel size bigger drives down system cost, merely by reducing the number of panels that need to be mounted.
- raincom 1y ago
  What is preventing from using larger panels? Transportation, manufacturing, reluctance by installers, or something else?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

zeristor 1y ago

Clean power is one part of it. Other parts are - HVDC cables to move the power to where it is needed. - grid scale batteries to buffer power, and even it out. - transformers. Hitherto grid transformers were all built as bespoke parts, but this is being standardised for lower lead time and economies of scale.

zeristor 1y ago

Another point is that China is strategically dependent on imports on gas and oil through the Malacca Straight. Green energy reduces that dependence, as does the use of electric vehicles. I don’t have any idea how much this is a consideration, I imagine it is quite a powerful one.