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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2026
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That's by percentage, if you look at absolute generation it looks more like this:
Coal is a smaller percentage of the total mix than in 2000 because they basically weren't using solar or wind at all back then. They are still increasing their consumption of coal in absolute figures by a significant amount.
Percentage / proportion over time is more pertinent for the term "transitioning" than absolute levels.
Solar and Wind started at 0.06% in 2001. That was 0.75TWh. In 2025 they made 21.83% with 2310.4TWh. That's a lot of electricity and explains why the other generation methods have gone down proportionally. This doesn't indicate a transition because the total generation has massively risen too. Hydro over the same period grew from 277.43TWh to 1397.06TWh, but by percentage dropped from 18.74% to 13.2% - I don't think anyone would argue that China is transitioning away from hydro.
For a transition to occur we would need to see a plateau and reduction in coal generation, not a 5x increase.
China is still a developing nation, and its countryside is still being modernised and connected into the wider infrastructure framework of the urban centres. This requires constant expansion of the electricity grid and output. It is not a mature, developed nation with little need to expand energy production like vast chunks of Europe and the US.