{"id":24813,"date":"2026-04-22T13:15:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trending.niftytrader.in\/?p=24813"},"modified":"2026-04-22T13:15:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:45:32","slug":"china-india-cut-fossil-power-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/china-india-cut-fossil-power-first-time\/","title":{"rendered":"China, India Cut Fossil Electricity Generation for First Time This Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

China and India reduced electricity generation from fossil fuels in the same year for the first time this century in 2025, according to Ember’s Global Electricity Review<\/a> published April 22, 2026. China’s fossil generation fell 0.9%, its steepest decline since 2015. India’s fell 3.3%, driven by record solar and wind additions that outpaced demand growth entirely. The reversal unfolded as the United States cancelled more than $24 billion in clean energy projects following the July 4, 2025, signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, per E2’s Clean Economy Works analysis.<\/p>\n

Renewables Overtake Coal as Demand Growth Is Fully Absorbed<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Global clean power generation rose 887 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025, exceeding total electricity demand growth of 849 TWh, meaning renewables absorbed every unit of new demand and pushed fossil generation into reverse by 0.2%, per Ember. Renewables reached 34% of global electricity generation, overtaking coal’s 33% share for the first time in the modern era. Solar alone met 75% of net demand growth, growing 30% year-on-year, its fastest rate in eight years. Battery costs fell 45% in 2025, driving a 46% expansion in global storage capacity, a critical enabler of solar generation beyond daylight hours, according to Ember.<\/p>\n

China’s Clean Energy Economy Becomes Structural Growth Engine<\/strong><\/h2>\n

China’s role in this shift is structural. Clean-energy sectors contributed 15.4 trillion yuan ($2.1 trillion) to China’s GDP in 2025, 11.4% of total output, nearly doubling in real value between 2022 and 2025, per the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)<\/a>. Without that 18% annual expansion in clean energy, China’s overall GDP would have grown at 3.5% instead of the reported 5%, CREA found. By end-2025, China had installed approximately 1,200 GW of solar and 640 GW of wind, roughly six times the United States’ combined total, per CleanTechnica’s April 2026 capacity analysis. China also led more than half of global growth in both solar capacity and generation in 2025 and accounted for most of the world’s rise in wind, adding 138 TWh, per Ember.<\/p>\n

India’s Solar and Wind Additions Hit Industrial Scale<\/strong><\/h2>\n

India added 44.6 GW of solar capacity in fiscal year 2025\u201326 and 6.05 GW of wind, bringing cumulative installed wind to 56.09 GW. The pace was sufficient to push fossil generation down 3.3% even as overall electricity demand rose. India surpassed its 2030 target of 40% installed capacity from non-fossil sources nine years ahead of schedule, per the World Economic Forum. Bloomberg data cited by the Council on Foreign Relations shows India’s clean-energy investment rose 15% in 2024 to $68 billion, with the pace accelerating since.<\/p>\n

Western Retreat: Policy Rollbacks and Quantified Investment Losses<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The quantified contrast with the West is direct. E2’s Clean Economy Works analysis found that US companies cancelled, closed, or scaled back more than $24 billion in clean energy projects in 2025 alone, erasing nearly 21,000 previously announced jobs. The US Department of Energy separately withdrew nearly $8 billion in grants supporting more than 200 projects. Rhodium Group modelled that repealing IRA-equivalent energy tax credits reduces new clean capacity installed between 2025 and 2035 by 57\u201372%, while gas capacity expands by up to 9% in 2035. Resources for the Future’s Global Energy Outlook 2025 found that high capital costs and permitting delays have already caused major Western wind developers to cut investment commitments. In the first half of 2025, China’s Belt and Road Initiative directed $9.7 billion into green energy projects, up $4.2 billion from the same period in 2024, adding 11.9 GW of capacity across partner nations, per Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.<\/p>\n

India’s Polysilicon Gap: The One Supply Chain Number That Matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n

India’s Production Linked Incentive scheme has produced 120 GW of module manufacturing capacity and 29.3 GW of cell capacity as of June 2025, a 216% and 344% increase, respectively, from 2022 levels, per IEEFA and JMK Research. Solar module imports fell 36% from FY2021\u201322 to FY2024\u201325, dropping from $3.36 billion to $2.15 billion, even as domestic installations nearly doubled. The upstream gap is specific: India has only 3.3 GW of domestic polysilicon capacity against a 120 GW module base, leaving wafer and polysilicon supply structurally dependent on China. No PLI-backed polysilicon project has reached commercial scale as of June 2025, per IEEFA, and the government has not announced a funded domestic polysilicon expansion programme with a confirmed commissioning timeline. Until that changes, India’s module manufacturing build-out rests on a Chinese upstream foundation.<\/p>\n

Also Read: Sarvam AI\u2019s Chanakya Brings Air-Gapped AI to India\u2019s Defence<\/a><\/p>\n

FAQ<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Did China and India actually reduce fossil fuel electricity generation in 2025?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Yes, simultaneously and for the first time this century. China’s fossil generation fell 0.9%; India’s fell 3.3%, per Ember’s Global Electricity Review, April 22, 2026.<\/p>\n

What share of global electricity came from renewables in 2025?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

34% overtaking coal’s 33% for the first time in modern history, per Ember. Solar alone met 75% of net new demand growth.<\/p>\n

How much clean energy investment did the US lose in 2025?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Companies cancelled over $24 billion in projects and 21,000 jobs in 2025 alone following the July 2025 IRA rollback, per E2. The DOE separately cut $8 billion in federal grants to 200+ projects.<\/p>\n

How much is China’s clean-energy economy worth?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

$2.1 trillion in 2025, 11.4% of GDP, contributing over a third of China’s total GDP growth that year, per CREA (February 2026).<\/p>\n

How dependent is India on China for solar manufacturing?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Significantly at the upstream level. India now has 120 GW of domestic module capacity but only 3.3 GW of polysilicon capacity, meaning the raw material base for nearly all Indian solar manufacturing still comes from China, per IEEFA (December 2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China and India reduced electricity generation from fossil fuels in the same year for the first time this century in 2025, according to Ember’s Global Electricity Review published April 22, 2026. China’s fossil generation fell 0.9%, its steepest decline since 2015. India’s fell 3.3%, driven by record solar and wind additions that outpaced demand growth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1523],"class_list":{"0":"post-24813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-finance-and-economy-news"}," _eael_post_view_count":0,"authors":[{"term_id":1523,"user_id":11,"is_guest":0,"slug":"nikki","display_name":"Nikki Lodha","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ae2e265bd56e0e890c866fbaa55d29846ba20cc5372adf666652268816af117e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24815,"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24813\/revisions\/24815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24813"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.niftytrader.in\/markets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=24813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}