China says wind and solar energy capacity exceeds thermal for first time

Beijing: China said on Friday its wind and solar energy capacity had surpassed that of mostly coal powered thermal energy for the first time. In t...

Beijing: China said on Friday its wind and solar energy capacity had surpassed that of mostly coal-powered thermal energy for the first time.

"In the first quarter of 2025, China's newly installed wind and photovoltaic power capacity totalled 74.33 million kilowatts, bringing the cumulative installed capacity to 1.482 billion kilowatts," China's national energy body said.

"It has surpassed the installed capacity of thermal power (1.451 billion kilowatts) for the first time," it said, without defining thermal power in its short statement.

China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases that drive climate change, has pledged to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

While around 60 percent of China's energy comes from coal, the country is also a renewable energy powerhouse, building almost twice as much wind and solar capacity as every other country combined, according to research published last year.