The Global green shift in electric power: China in comparative perspective

The world’s electric power system continues to be a principal source of carbon emissions, comparable to transport and such industries as steel and cement. Intense debate surrounds the issue of the pace at which it is greening. In this paper we offer a precise definition of greening as a rising proportion of electric power sourced from water, wind and sun (WWS), since these are all fundamentally renewable. Using the latest data from the BP Energy Review as well as national and regional sources, we demonstrate that by 2019 the EU-28 had reached a proportion of electricity generated from WWS of 34%, followed by China at 27%, Japan at 19% and the US at 17%. Moreover, the EU-28 achieved the fastest pace of transition, increasing its WWS-share of electricity generated from 20% in 2010 to 34% in 2019, or a 14% green shift in a decade. Over the same period, China’s green shift in power generation was 10%, while that of Japan was 9% (all achieved in the decade following the Fukushima disaster) and the US at an 7% shift. The IEA has just issued a report revealing that globally renewable sources of energy account for 29% of electricity generated in 2020, up 2% on 2019 levels. In this paper we examine the performance of China in greatest detail, since it is now the world’s largest burner of coal, operates the world’s largest electric power system, and is responsible for the highest levels of carbon emissions. We make the case that China has overall goals of decarbonization and dematerialization (i.e. using less material per unit of GDP), where the former goal is met by the shift to renewable sources of energy and the latter by the shift towards urban mining and the circular economy. Based on newly published data from the China Energy Council, we update our previous analyses of China’s energy choices, looking for the green shoots in an otherwise black energy system. China’s electric power system, now the largest in the world, continues to burn a lot of coal – nearly 4 billion tonnes in 2020, a 1% decrease on the 2019 total. But within this black power economy the green shoots are increasingly significant. We show that the proportion of China’s electric power generation sourced from water, wind and sun (WWS) by 2020 reached 27%, up from 17% a decade earlier – a 10% green shift in a decade. In terms of generating capacity the figures for China are even more striking. In 2020 China’s generating capacity sourced from WWS reached 41%, up from 25% in 2011, or a 16% green shift in capacity in 10 years. At this rate of a 1.6% green shift in generating capacity per year, China’s electric power system would be more green than black by 2026, with widespread repercussions, for China and the world. We put these data in their international comparative perspective, and in the perspective that China is electrifying its economy faster than any other major region. But the levels of carbon emissions continue to rise (reaching 13.5 billion tonnes carbon dioxide in 2020), with China’s leadership not predicting their peaking before 2030. So there is much to be done in terms of decarbonizing energy and electric power in particular. The wider significance of China’s green choices, in the context of its increasing assertiveness internationally, is discussed.