IEA Sees Coal's Generation Share Slipping as China and India Both Cut Coal Power

IEA Sees Coal's Generation Share Slipping as China and India Both Cut Coal Power The agency's Electricity 2026 report projects renewables, nuclear and gas eroding coal's slice of a power mix growing more than 3pc a year this decade. The IEA's Electricity 2026 report, published last month (2026-05-20), forecasts that coal's share of the global generation mix will be eroded over the rest of this decade even as total power demand grows by more than 3 percent a year on average. Gains in nuclear, renewables and natural gas do the displacing.¹ The world's single largest source of electricity is losing ground in relative terms at the same moment two of its biggest consumers cut coal-fired output outright. For thermal coal demand that signal reads bearish, and it is now showing up in trade flows, not just forecasts.^1,5 Coal power generation fell in both China and India in 2025, the first simultaneous drop in half a century, according to analysis for Carbon Brief published last month (2026-05-19). Electricity from coal in India fell 3.0 percent year-on-year, a decline of 46 terawatt hours, after each country added record amounts of clean energy.⁵ China's own numbers tell the same story. Coal-powered generation there shrank 1.6 percent, Carbon Brief reported during the week of 2026-05-18, with India's coal generation down 3 percent over the same frame.³ The import data are starker. China's coal imports fell 9.6 percent from 2024 to 490 million tons last year, official figures released on 2026-05-19 showed, Reuters reported. Higher domestic output and a rare decline in thermal power generation drove the drop.³ Domestic supply is the reason imports keep sliding. Chinese coal output hit a record 4.83 billion tons last year, up 1.2 percent, Bloomberg reported on 2026-05-19, citing official statistics. Production climbed even as coal-fired generation fell, leaving less room for seaborne cargoes.⁶ The structural read is sharper still. China's imported coal demand ran from a record 47.6 million metric tons in September 2024 to a 26 percent year-on-year drop by June 2025, a swing that one analysis called a bellwether for the wider energy shift. Domestic production rose 5 percent year-on-year to record levels by 2025, the same account noted.² But the trend is not a straight line down. China's December coal imports hit 58.59 million tons, up 12 percent on the year, as winter demand bit, official data showed. Imports also fell in April after a record-breaking first quarter that had defied expectations of a slowdown, weighed down by weak demand and unfavorable import economics.^3,4 So the picture is a falling annual trend punctuated by sharp seasonal spikes. That makes thermal coal a treacherous market to position in on the headline numbers alone, because a cold December or a strong quarter can briefly reverse what looks like a clean structural decline.^3,4 For the longer view, the IEA expects renewables and nuclear to reach 50 percent of the world's power mix by the end of this decade, with natural gas also growing. Renewable output alone should grow by about 1,000 terawatt hours a year through 2030, with solar PV accounting for more than 600 terawatt hours of that, the agency forecasts.¹ The demand backdrop is not soft. Asia-Pacific remains the engine of fossil-fuel power growth, and the region's coal appetite is deeply embedded in informal as well as formal supply chains, as the IEA's own framing of regional emissions makes clear. For coal, the contest is over share, not absolute death.⁷ For Australian and seaborne suppliers, the China import number is the one to track. Newcastle thermal cargoes lean on Chinese buying at the margin, and a structurally smaller Chinese import book caps the upside even when JKM and Asian LNG run hot.² Watch the next monthly Chinese customs release for whether the post-first-quarter softness in imports holds or snaps back on summer cooling demand. Watch domestic Chinese output too, because record production is doing as much to crowd out imports as falling generation is. The annual trend points down. The monthly tape will keep testing it.^4,6