[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-internation...
On https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preis... you can see that mainstream solar panels have returned to their all-time low price of €0.100 per peak watt from November, while low-cost solar panels have fallen to a new all-time low of €0.055 per peak watt, an all-time low first achieved last month, and a 21% decline from a year ago. The "mainstream" category price is down 17% from a year ago. This is driving down the prices of complementary products and enabling new low-cost installation methods that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
Because it's so astoundingly cheap, last year China installed 277 GW(p) of solar power generation capacity: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65064. This compares to a total electrical generation capacity in the US of 1189 GW, albeit with a higher capacity factor: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-.... This year the projection is that China will have installed another 380 GW of solar capacity, giving it more solar electrical generation capacity than the US has total electrical generation capacity from all sources: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/07/10/china-on-track-to-dep...
Consequently we're seeing reports that, for Chinese AI startups, energy is a "solved problem", while US companies worry they'll be unable to get enough energy to compete: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intell....
This is one of the most historically important things happening in the world today, but it's surprisingly little known even among people who are otherwise well informed.
Even if Trump could strong-arm other rich countries into imposing US-style prohibitive tariffs on Chinese solar panels, he certainly won't strong-arm China, so the cat is out of the bag; that would just make those countries economically uncompetitive with Chinese products produced with superabundant solar energy. And panels are already being mass-produced overseas with Chinese technology at prices fossil fuels can't compete with.
"Solar is cheaper than fossil" does not look at the whole picture, it completely ignores that solar is not scalable quickly enough to meet rising energy demands. It also is a dark laugh towards consumers, who do not see prices lowering, but exponentially rising, ironically while the so-called cheap power sources are being rolled out.
For coal, the "started construction" number there isn't the same metric as began operation. You want to look for "commissioned" and you get 30 GW. From https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/when-coal-wont-ste...
> Note: In 2024, 66.7 GW of new coal power capacity was permitted, a decline from previous years but still above the subdued pace seen earlier in the year. New and revived coal power proposals totaled 68.9 GW, down from 117 GW in 2023 and 146 GW in 2022, indicating a potential slowdown in project initiation. Meanwhile, construction started on 94.5 GW of new coal capacity — the highest since 2015 — suggesting continued momentum in project development. However, the pace of new coal plants entering operation has been more moderate, with 30.5 GW commissioned so far in 2024, down from 49.8 GW last year but in line with 2021 and 2022 levels.
China is well positioned to do solar + storage, but a lot of that coal is probably (a) for base load, (b) for steel production and (c) to keep the coal miners in business. From the same write up:
> In 2024, more than 75% of newly approved coal power capacity was backed by coal mining companies or energy groups with coal mining operations, artificially driving up coal demand even when market fundamentals do not justify it.
> Hey n00bs: the up‑and‑to‑the‑right charts people fling around about China’s coal tell you almost nothing you think they do. Here's what actually matters:
> 1/ China’s electricity supply exploded over the last decade (versus stagnant for US)
> 2/ new growth is now being met mostly by clean power, coal is at all time low % of total
> 3/ grid delivery got a lot better (bigger and more efficient)
> 4/ China’s power‑sector emissions look like they peaked or are peaking, like 5 years ahead of its official deadline
> So if you reply with “BUT COAL PLANTS!!1!” without talking about utilization, per‑capita numbers, or the grid, you’re, uh, auditioning for the quote‑tweet (thx ChatGPT for this insult).
> More details below for those who have more than half a brain cell available: ...
Coal plant approvals in China last year ended up even lower than the 66.7 GW number you give, only 62.24 GW: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... That's for all of 02024, not (as you said) the first half.
Contrary to your assertion, that is the peak ("(p)") or nameplate capacity of the coal plants in question. However, coal plants do have a higher capacity factor than solar plants, which may have been what you were trying to say. In the US, which has the best data available, coal plants are operated with an average capacity factor of 42% (much lower than historical averages around 75%) while PV is down at 23%: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183680/us-average-capaci... but I think that in China the gap is wider. From memory, I think I worked out that China's average solar capacity factor has been around 10%, while coal is nearly 50%.
So 62GW(p) of coal capacity built would be about 30GW 'permanently available'. Moreover, However, not all of those regulatorily approved projects will actually come to fruition. You can see from boulos's numbers that only about half of approved plants ever get built. So 62GW approved is more like an average of 15GW actually produced—for the few short years before the plants are shut down.
I'm not sure what you mean by "not scalable quickly enough to meet rising energy demands". China was indeed having a hard time scaling electrical generation quickly enough to meet rising energy demands, back when they were more heavily coal-dependent. They had a full-blown crisis in 02021 with widespread blackouts. But that's because fossil fuels aren't scalable. That's why they installed 500 GW (half a terawatt) of new electrical generation capacity last year, half of which is solar and 80% of which is renewables. As Lauri Myllyvirta says in https://xcancel.com/laurimyllyvirta/status/19603213250099530..., it's probably also why they're still building even the small amount of coal-fired generation capacity they are:
> Permitting of a massive wave of new coal plants was a knee-jerk response to early-2020s power shortages and grid challenges from rapid wind and solar growth. The coal industry marketed itself as the solution, showing its entrenched influence. Since then, better grid operation and storage have largely addressed those issues, while the coal projects approved at the time are still under construction. A huge pipeline of already permitted projects remains.
He cites https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/chinas-coal-is-los... for further information.
I don't have a good handle on consumer electricity prices in China, but from Rui Ma's figures in https://xcancel.com/ruima/status/1960397673921699955, they don't seem to be exponentially rising; the average residential rate she gives is 0.542 RMB/kWh, which is US$0.076/kWh. That was for 02019. According to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-e..., in 02024, Chinese consumers were paying US$0.08/kWh for their electricity, so they basically haven't seen a price increase in five years. And they're paying less than half the average in the US, where solar deployment is so much less advanced.
By the way, my comment you were replying to cited 5 sources of reliable information. This comment, in reply to yours, cites two reliable sources, plus Statista, World Population Review, and two people on Twitter. Your comment disagreeing with mine cites zero sources, and unsurprisingly virtually every assertion in it is wrong. I corrected five factual errors in your four-sentence comment, and I suspect there are more. Don't you have any information to contribute? Do you just not care whether what you're saying is true or not? Do you think that insufficient ignorance is a big problem in the world, so you'd like to create additional ignorance?