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China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, is on the cusp of a clean energy transition as new solar power becomes cheaper than coal throughout most of the country, according to a new study.
By 2023, China will have the capacity to deploy solar power nationwide at the same price as coal, and currently has that ability in three-quarters of the country, according to a joint study from Harvard, Tsinghua, Nankai and Renmin universities.
“Today subsidy-free solar power has become cheaper than coal power in most parts of China” in a trajectory spreading across the country, study coauthor Xi Lu said in a statement.
While the country is a long way from tapping that theoretical potential, the new research highlights “a crucial energy transition point” at which solar becomes a “cheaper alternative to coal-fired electricity and a more grid-compatible option,” said co-author Michael McElroy.
By 2060, the study found, China will have the capacity to meet 43 percent of its power needs with solar energy that costs less than 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour — less than half of China’s 2019 price for coal energy, and less than a quarter the current average U.S. energy cost.
That projection is much faster than previous studies, which researchers say failed to account for the way that China’s growing solar sector — which now represents a third of total global solar production — has benefited from technical advances and economies of scale.
The report comes ahead of the global climate summit in Scotland next month, where China’s plans to transition away from coal will be a major factor in the world’s ability to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
One key accelerant of China’s solar growth is the “cost of capital:” how much solar developers have to pay in interest or dividends to secure funding for new projects.
This number plummeted 63 percent in China between 2011 and 2018, even as government subsidies fell away, researchers said. READ MORE...
