China has shattered records in clean energy deployment, installing a staggering 93 GW of solar capacity and 26 GW of wind in May 2025 alone—equivalent to adding a gigawatt every eight hours and a wind turbine every ten minutes.
Between January and May, the country added a total of 198 GW of solar and 46 GW of wind, enough to power countries like Poland or Indonesia. This surge pushed China’s cumulative solar capacity past 1 TW, representing around half of global solar potential.
This unprecedented scale of deployment has tipped the balance in China’s energy mix—renewables now outpace thermal (mainly coal) capacity for the first time, with cumulative solar and wind installations exceeding thermal power in the first quarter of 2025.
Clean energy now provides 22.5% of China’s electricity, and this rapid build-out helped reduce electrical carbon emissions by nearly 6%. While coal remains a significant part of China’s energy landscape, the momentum behind solar and wind capacity suggests the country is fast approaching a turning point in its energy transition.
Source: AP News
