China’s Energy Spending Outpaces US And EU Combined, IEA Data Shows

The numbers are staggering. China spent over $625 billion on clean energy in 2024, nearly double what it shelled out in 2015. That’s almost as much as the US and EU combined spend on all energy investments. Let that sink in. While Western nations debate climate policies, China’s writing checks that would make Wall Street blush.

The country now boasts 3,487GW of total installed power capacity as of April 2025, up 16% from last year. Here’s where it gets interesting. Solar and wind capacity hit 1,456GW in February, officially surpassing coal for the first time. That’s 43% of total capacity. Coal executives probably didn’t see that coming a decade ago.

China’s electricity consumption reached 743TWh in February 2025, an 8.6% jump year-on-year. But clean electricity generation? That hit 951TWh in Q1 2025, up 19%. Solar generation alone skyrocketed 42.9% to 350TWh in the first four months of 2025. Wind wasn’t far behind, churning out 412TWh, up 16%. These aren’t incremental changes. They’re seismic shifts.

Clean electricity generation hit 951TWh while consumption reached only 743TWh. China’s producing more clean power than it needs.

The grid’s getting a makeover too. China dumped RMB44 billion (about $6 billion) into transmission expansion and modernization in early 2025, a 34% increase from last year. The country’s planning to invest another USD 88 billion in grid infrastructure throughout 2025 to address bottlenecks and curtailment issues. Turns out you need serious infrastructure to handle all those solar panels and wind turbines. Who knew?

Clean energy now makes up 39% of China’s electricity generation, up from 34% last year. Wind became the biggest clean electricity source in Q1 2025, generating 307TWh. Meanwhile, thermal capacity growth limped along at 4%, with experts predicting it’ll plateau by 2026. Coal’s slow fade continues. Yet China still began construction on nearly 100 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants in 2024, hedging its bets on energy security.

The kicker? Renewables made up 91% of new capacity additions in early 2025. Nuclear chipped in too, generating 159TWh, up 12.7%. Zero-emission sources covered all new electricity demand growth. This aligns with China’s ambitious target of 15% non-fossil energy by 2030, though current trends suggest they’ll exceed this goal easily. Every single megawatt.

China’s clean energy investment dwarfs individual US and EU efforts. While politicians elsewhere argue about feasibility, China’s building the future, one solar panel at a time. The energy evolution isn’t coming. It’s here. And it speaks Mandarin.