Seems like the plan is to adjust the rates for wind and solar, inducing demand, but then keep coal as a backup so that power is always cheap.
It will be interesting to see how consumption responds to variability of renewables. Grid batteries, production scaling with the sun, EV charging with the sun, etc.
China’s One Month Lithium Battery Energy Storage Installations Beat America’s One Whole Year - https://carboncredits.com/china-outpaces-u-s-in-lithium-batt... - January 26th, 2026
China BESS installations in December surpass US 2025 total - https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/china-bess-inst... - January 7th, 2026
Q&A: How China became the world’s leading market for energy storage - https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-china-became-the-worlds-l... - January 23rd, 2025
Global Energy Storage Market Records Biggest Jump Yet - https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/global-energy-s... - April 25th, 2024
The sky is literally the limit.
Another point to consider is manufacturing all these panels, which are functionally net carbon sinks, count towards PRC emissions vs extracting oil/lng where exporters who gets to shift emission accounting onto importers/consumers under current territorial emission accounting. IF PRC got credited for ~110 mb/d of fossil displaced via solar (round down for conservative carbon payback), PRC emissions would be completely negated, i.e. PRC annual solar production would avoid ~30Gt of emissions over lifetime vs PRC total emissions of ~15Gt.
Lastly, thought experiment: PRC solar manufacturing at like 50% utilization, they're scaled for ~1100GW, if world can absorb PRC solar, PRC can mint enough panels in 12 years to replace oil. At full utility, it supports about 240mbd flow of global solar stock after switching to replacement in 30 years. Hypothetically, if PRC maintained peak 400GW of solar expansion per year (~3mbd), i.e.2025 1100GW, 2026 = 1500GW, 2027 = 1900GW... by 2036 = 5500GW about ~40mbd of annual displacement, and cumulative ~300mbd displacement (flow not stock), aka current total global fossil consumption replacement.
Obviously, this is functionally magical thinking, PRC going through solar involution = they're not going to 5x their solar production... but theoretically this scenario not impossible. PRC can scale to 5500GW for the paltry sum of lol $50B per year. Probably need another 200B in battery storage to match. About 2.5T in ~10 years, really a pittance if it can be absorbed/integrated. Of course will run into material/battery crunch (i.e. eliminate silver / increase copper mining), but on paper that is something that can happen, certainly by 2050/60 on lax timelines. Alternative aggressively hopium framing, but 8billion people chip in $25 per year directed at solar + batteries and we can replace fossil in 10-15 years. We already spend more than this on fossil. we're It doesn't have to be PRC alone, but if they wanted to, they can carry it.
toomuchtodo•1w ago