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196 points triceratops | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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mperham ◴[] No.45108735[source]
> a boom in solar that saw the country [China] add 92 gigawatts of capacity—that’s 92 billion watts—in a single month in May, compared to all-time U.S. installations of 134 GW.

That's an insane stat. China added 92GW of solar in May 2025 alone.

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1. davis ◴[] No.45109289[source]
It is an insane number but May 2025 is a bit of an outlier. The entire first half of the year they installed 197.85 and in May they installed 92.92 of that.

Much of this solar was rushed construction to get them in before the new electricity pricing policy goes into effect. It isn't known yet how much the buildout will drop off for the remainder of the year but it is pretty conceivable that some fraction of the construction for the rest of the year was "pulled" forward and rushed to get it in before June. I'm hopeful China's insane buildout will continue but we probably won't see numbers like May 2025 for awhile at least.

The short summary: if a renewable project was built and finished before June, it gets the old, more profitable electricity rates, but if it is finished after June, it is less profitable.

More details on this here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-chinas-renewable-p...