So Far This Year, China Has Wasted Enough Clean Energy to Power Mexico

So Far This Year, China Has Wasted Enough Clean Energy to Power Mexico - Yale E360

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August 17, 2026

So Far This Year, China Has Wasted Enough Clean Energy to Power Mexico

Power lines in Tianjin, China. Yucun Tang via Flickr

China is leading the world on renewable energy, last year installing more wind and solar capacity than every other country put together. But its buildout has unfolded at such a ferocious pace that China is now generating much more electricity than its power grid can handle, meaning that huge amounts of clean power are going unused. When the grid is at capacity, operators must reject electricity from wind and solar plants to prevent overloads and blackouts. In the first six months of this year, China rejected 360 terawatt-hours of clean energy, enough to power Mexico for a year, according to a report from Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. “Had this electricity been absorbed, the additional power supply could have met all demand growth and allowed coal power generation to fall,” analysts said. The problem, analysts say, is that China lacks the transmission infrastructure necessary to ferry its abundant clean energy from where it is generated to where it is needed. Also stymying the consumption of clean energy is a policy that guarantees the purchase of electricity from newly built coal power plants. Despite a pledge to shift away from coal, China continues to permit and construct new generators. “Coal capacity is still growing because of legacy approvals and policy protections, even as plants run fewer hours and large volumes of clean electricity go unused,” said Qi Qin, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. The new report finds that China rejected 26.1 percent of its wind and solar output in the first half of this year, far more than official figures would suggest. Other countries with large amounts of renewable energy are also dealing with wasted power. In India, clean power capacity just surpassed fossil fuel capacity for the first time, but transmission infrastructure has yet to catch up. On a single day in March, India wasted 34 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity, enough to power about 5 million homes, according to an analysis from the think tank Ember. The core of the problem, analysts said, “is a growing mismatch between the pace of renewable energy development and the readiness of the transmission infrastructure.” ALSO ON YALE E360 As It Boosts Renewables, China Still Can’t Break Its Coal Addiction

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