Belt and road: Chinese power firms install record capacity with reliance on fossil fuels
Reliance on dirty energy sources remained big at 48 per cent of projects in 2024, versus 55 per cent in 2022, report showed
Chinese power companies installed a record amount of generation capacity in overseas markets covered by Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, with nearly half of them using fossil fuels.
They completed 24 gigawatts (GW) of projects in more than 150 countries with which China has signed cooperation agreements, the highest level since the initiative was launched in 2013, UK-based consultancy Wood Mackenzie said in a report on Monday. That compared with 10GW installed in 2023 and 22GW in 2022.
Some 52 per cent of the projects employed renewable sources, including a doubling of solar energy to 8GW and five times more hydroelectric power at 5GW. The other 48 per cent of the projects were fired by coal, natural gas and oil, whose combined capacity jumped to 12GW from 3GW in 2023.
“Chinese companies are heavily prioritising greener technologies overseas,” said Alex Whitworth, vice-president and head of Asia-Pacific power and renewables research. As the costs decline, “[they] are leading its deployment in many developing markets that could not previously afford it”, he added.
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President Xi Jinping pledged in September 2021 to stop building more coal-fired power projects overseas. About a fifth of the capacity of the 104 coal-fired plants, either planned or under construction in 26 countries with China’s involvement, were cancelled a year after that.
Still, some 19GW of coal-fired power projects remain in the pipeline, despite the global shift away from dirty energy sources. In addition, some 9GW of natural gas-fired projects were also in various stages of progress, Wood Mackenzie said.
