China’s approvals for new coal power projects are expected to decline sharply in 2025, reaching their lowest level in four years, according to new analysis by Greenpeace. The slowdown signals a structural shift in the country’s power sector as rapid growth in renewable energy begins to outpace demand for new coal capacity.
Greenpeace reported that Chinese authorities issued permits for 41.8 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity during the first three quarters of 2025, marking a year-on-year decline of nearly 30 percent. If this trend continues through year-end, total approvals would fall to the lowest annual level since 2021.
The findings reflect China’s accelerating energy transition, driven by record installations of solar and wind power—estimated at over 250 GW combined in 2025—and enhanced grid integration measures. The Chinese government has also signaled tighter scrutiny of coal project approvals under its dual-carbon goals to achieve peak emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.
While coal remains central to China’s energy security framework, the data indicates a gradual pivot toward lower-emission sources and a reallocation of investment toward renewable power infrastructure, energy storage, and transmission capacity expansion.
The approvals so far in 2025 represent an estimated 171.5 billion yuan to 181.5 billion yuan ($24.2 billion to $25.6 billion) in new coal investment, 85% of which belongs to state-owned enterprises, according to Greenpeace.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“As the share of renewable energy generation increases, China’s additional electricity demand can now be fully met by wind and solar power,” said Greenpeace East Asia’s climate and energy project manager Gao Yuhe.
“Expectations for coal power generation and profitability have also declined, leading to a drop in approval volumes.”
China saw a spike in coal plant permits during 2022 to 2023, after coal and power shortages around that time spooked regulators.
But permits dropped off from 2024 after the crisis eased, the growing renewables fleet started to cover more of the incremental demand, and shortages turned to oversupply.
However, given the earlier surge, total permits for the 2020 to 2025 five-year plan period are already more than twice the total for the previous five years.
There may also be a temporal factor at play given that 2025 is the last year of the current five-year plan and many projects were already approved earlier in the five-year period, according to Gao.
Gao said that if China can continue advancing the construction of its ‘new power system’ – a term it uses to describe the increasing use of renewables with coal taking on more of a supporting role – then permitting rates could dip even lower in the coming five years, compared to 2025.
China committed in 2021 to phase down its coal consumption during the 2026-2030 period, but China’s new climate goals for 2035, released in September, did not put forward new targets for coal.
Agencies
