Editor | Quantity Surveyor
China’s installed solar power capacity has overtaken coal power for the first time, making photovoltaics the country’s largest power source by installed capacity, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced on Tuesday.
As of the end of July, installed solar capacity stood at 1.286 billion kilowatts, narrowly ahead of coal power’s 1.285 billion kilowatts, according to figures released by the administration. The gap between the two sources remains small, but the milestone marks a symbolic shift in a power system long dominated by coal.
Newly installed photovoltaic capacity added in July alone totalled 13.73 million kilowatts, a 43 per cent increase compared with the same month last year. That pace of installation has been a major driver behind solar’s rise to the top of China’s generation mix.
Photovoltaic power generation reached 802.4 billion kilowatt-hours in July, up 15.5 per cent year-on-year. That growth rate ran 10.8 percentage points ahead of the increase in overall social electricity consumption over the same period, indicating solar’s expanding share of the country’s total power supply.
Solar power accounted for 13 per cent of total social electricity consumption last month, according to the NEA, a rise of 1.7 percentage points compared with the full-year figure recorded in 2025.
The NEA said installed solar capacity and generation output have both maintained rapid growth in recent years, playing an increasingly central role in securing electricity supply while supporting the country’s broader transition toward green energy sources.
China has spent much of the past two decades building out renewable energy infrastructure at a scale unmatched globally, driven by a combination of industrial policy, manufacturing capacity in solar equipment and rising domestic electricity demand.
Coal has historically anchored the country’s power system, prized for its reliability and existing infrastructure, even as pollution and carbon emissions concerns pushed policymakers toward cleaner alternatives.
Despite solar’s new lead in installed capacity, the shift does not immediately translate into a coal-free grid. Installed capacity measures the maximum output a power source could theoretically generate, not the electricity actually produced.
Coal plants typically run at higher and more consistent utilisation rates than solar installations, which depend on weather and daylight hours, meaning coal is likely to continue supplying a substantial share of China’s actual electricity generation even as its capacity lead narrows or disappears.
Even so, the milestone reflects the scale of China’s renewable buildout. Total installed power-generating capacity across the country reached 3.99 billion kilowatts by the end of April this year, according to earlier NEA figures, marking continued growth across the power sector as a whole.
China’s rapid solar expansion has occasionally drawn criticism from some Western commentators over curtailment, the practice of intentionally reducing renewable output when grid capacity or demand cannot absorb it. Chinese state media has pushed back on that framing, arguing it understates the pace and scale of the country’s clean energy transition.
The NEA did not indicate in its announcement whether it expects the gap between solar and coal capacity to widen in the months ahead, though the current trajectory of installation growth suggests solar’s lead is likely to continue expanding.
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