China's Coal Commissioning Hits Record as Hormuz Disruptions Crush Gas Imports

China's Coal Commissioning Hits Record as Hormuz Disruptions Crush Gas Imports Thermal power commissioning surged over 160% in Q1 while crude and gas imports fell sharply, reversing a historic decline in coal-fired generation. China's thermal power commissioning surged more than 160% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, reaching a record high. Coal-fired generation rose for the fourth consecutive month. Total power generation climbed an estimated 6.6% year-on-year in April, but weak wind conditions, subdued solar output, and extended nuclear refuelling outages pushed coal back into the driver's seat.² The Strait of Hormuz drove the acceleration. Shipping disruptions through the chokepoint crushed China's energy imports in April, with crude oil falling around 20% year-on-year and natural gas dropping roughly 13%. When pipeline and shipped molecules become unreliable, domestic coal fills the gap. That is what happened.² This reversal carries weight because of what came before it. Carbon Brief analysis showed that coal power generation fell in both China and India in 2025, the first simultaneous drop in half a century, after each nation added record amounts of clean energy. China's decline was driven by a massive buildout of solar, wind, and battery capacity. That decline is now threatened.⁶ China's coal production hit an all-time high last year at 4.83 billion tons, up 1.2% annually, even as coal-fired generation was declining. The paradox made sense at the time: domestic coal was displacing imports, and port inventory surpluses meant Chinese buyers could rely on local mines instead of overseas suppliers. Coal imports fell 6% year-on-year in March 2025, a historic low, as domestic prices undercut international benchmarks.^8,4 But the Hormuz crisis has changed the calculus. China boosted coal and gas power generation by 3.1% in April from a year earlier as wind and nuclear output fell. The country is burning more coal not because renewables failed structurally, but because the external energy supply chain broke at the worst possible moment. Wind speeds dropped. Nuclear plants went into extended maintenance. And the molecules that might have replaced coal at the margin could not get through.⁷ The renewable buildout continues. Solar capacity additions fell 31% year-on-year in Q1, though from a very high base and still above 2023 levels. Wind additions rose 8%. Battery output surged 55.6% year-on-year in April, supported by storage demand and exports. Clean-energy investment in 2024 reached $940 billion, or 10% of GDP. China installed more solar capacity in that year alone — 277 gigawatts — than exists in the entire United States.^2,3 Senior energy analyst Muyi Yang at think tank Ember described China's approach as "build before breaking" — deploying clean capacity at scale while keeping coal running as insurance. That insurance policy is now being exercised at full force. The question is whether the exercise becomes permanent.⁵ China is also developing an alternative domestic gas supply. Deep coalbed gas production reached 2.5 billion cubic metres within three years, and PetroChina Coalbed Methane Company produced nearly 2 billion cubic metres of deep coalbed gas in 2024 alone. Coalbed methane reserves have grown by a cumulative 320 billion cubic metres over three years, 77% from deep formations. By 2025, total coalbed gas production is expected to hit 17 billion cubic metres. The 2035 target is 40 to 50 billion cubic metres annually from 50 trillion cubic metres of confirmed deep reserves.¹ That deep gas play matters for the coal story. If China can develop enough domestic gas from coal seams to partially offset its LNG import vulnerability, it reduces the pressure to keep burning thermal coal for baseload power during supply disruptions. But 17 billion cubic metres is a fraction of China's total gas consumption. The volumes are growing fast from a small base. New energy vehicles continued to outperform the broader auto sector in April, and solar cell production fell 25.6%, reflecting weaker domestic installations and a pullback in exports. The energy transition is proceeding in fits. The clean side of China's ledger is expanding, but the dirty side is not shrinking — it is growing to fill the gap left by a supply crisis China did not cause but cannot avoid.² The signal to watch is whether Q2 thermal commissioning sustains the Q1 record. If it does, the first meaningful decline in Chinese coal-fired generation since Carbon Brief began tracking it will have lasted exactly one year before reversing. That would reset emissions trajectory assumptions across every model that uses Chinese coal demand as an input.^2,6