China's solar capacity claims fail to account for unused power, analyst says

Claims that China's solar power capacity has overtaken coal are misleading because much of that renewable energy goes unused due to grid limitations, a retired environmental sociologist says.

Jim Warren, a retired adjunct professor of environmental sociology at the University of Regina, said environmentalists are using a "statistical trick" by conflating installed capacity with actual electricity generation.

"Not so fast tree huggers. It turns out that China’s alleged solar success is a statistical trick, a mirage based on a misleading interpretation of what 'power generating capacity' means in relation to actual production," Warren wrote in an analysis.

He pointed to headlines from Reuters on September 1, "Solar overtakes coal as China’s largest source of power capacity," and the South China Morning Post on September 2, "Beyond Coal: China’s installed solar capacity crosses historic threshold."

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Warren said the South China Morning Post article included a qualifying line stating it would require a multi-trillion yuan investment to make all that solar work, but failed to explain why.

A Corporate Knights newsletter report stated that during the first six months of 2026, over one-quarter of China's wind and solar power facilities went unused.

That translated to 360 terawatt-hours of potential power that could not be fed into the grid, an amount greater than the United Kingdom's entire electricity use last year, according to the report.

Warren said the calculation error assumes solar generating stations operate 24/7, ignoring that they do not produce power at night, and also fails to account for China's grid management problems.

He said China's electrical grid lacks the switching technology and battery storage capacity to balance the intermittent nature of solar and wind power, which also do not produce when the wind doesn't blow or is too strong.

Coal remains the dominant source of electricity in China, accounting for nearly 50 percent of consumption, while solar provides less than 13 percent, Warren said.

He compared the overbuilding of renewable energy facilities to China's past real estate boom, which led to thousands of empty apartment buildings and massive financial losses.

"The overbuilding of solar and wind facilities means the wasting of approximately 720 terawatts of potential electrical power annually," Warren wrote.

He said losses may decline with improved grid management and battery storage, but questioned how long that would take and what condition unused installations would be in after decades.

Warren said the debate is relevant to Canada, where supporters of conventional energy often cite China's high emissions as a reason for modest domestic climate action.

Canada emitted 575 million tonnes of CO2 in 2023, putting it in 12th place globally, while China emitted 13.260 billion tonnes, or 34 percent of the world's total, he noted.

Some environmentalists have argued that China's growth in renewable capacity undermines the argument that Canada's emissions cuts are insignificant on a global scale.

Warren said the Chinese example shows that "climate crusaders will knowingly or unknowingly make use of weakly supported claims to attack conventional energy."

He also cited claims by some analysts that increased Chinese renewable generation has helped reduce crude oil imports by 40 percent, softening global price impacts from supply disruptions.

With files from Pipeline Online