China's Grid Wastes 170TWh as CREA Analyst Warns Renewable Capacity Is Not Reaching Consumers
Rising curtailment pushed China's CO2 up 2% in early 2026, undermining the world's fastest clean-energy build-out.
China's renewable capacity is not translating into delivered electricity, a CREA analyst warned Saturday (2026-08-02), as data show the country's grid failed to absorb an estimated 170 terawatt-hours of potential wind and solar output in the first quarter of 2026. "The situation is alarming," said Qi Qin of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. "China has installed enormous amounts of solar and wind capacity, but the question is whether that capacity is being fully utilised."8
Emissions answered that question bluntly. Carbon dioxide output rose 2% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, according to Carbon Brief analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta of CREA — a direction that cuts against Beijing's stated decarbonisation trajectory. Wasted generation leaves thermal plants running to fill the gap. Capacity installed is not electricity delivered.5,4
The scale of the build-out makes the curtailment figure all the more striking. By end-2025, China had 887 gigawatts of solar capacity installed, close to double the combined total of Europe and the United States, according to the Economist. Yet grid infrastructure has not kept pace, creating a widening mismatch between generation assets and transmission capability. Grid bottlenecks are preventing clean power from reaching demand centres, according to Asian Power.1,7
The financial cost is not trivial. Lost generation amounts to roughly $17 billion in wasted power value, according to Eco-Business analysis — a figure large enough to accelerate investment in battery storage. China added 66.4 gigawatts of new storage capacity in 2025, up around 52% year-on-year. That is a response to the curtailment problem, not evidence it has been solved.3
Muyi Yang, senior energy analyst at Ember, attributes part of the pattern to China's "build before breaking" approach: capacity is added faster than grid upgrades or market rules can accommodate, with integration treated as secondary. The policy framework has also shifted. In 2024, regulators relaxed a benchmark requiring a minimum share of wind and solar output to be utilised by the grid, reducing the obligation on operators to absorb renewable generation. That change made curtailment easier to permit.2,3
Coal is the direct beneficiary. In 2025, China accounted for 78% of all new coal power generation capacity commissioned globally, and currently represents 86% of coal capacity under construction worldwide scheduled to come online this year, according to Yahoo Finance data. Beijing's latest five-year plan, released in June 2026, confirmed continued heavy spending on both coal and renewables simultaneously — a parallel expansion that analysts at France24 described as a power paradox.6,2
The clean power that does reach the grid is making a measurable difference in some regions. Total clean power supply to fuel-importing provinces rose by 730 terawatt-hours, equivalent to 1.5 times China's liquefied natural gas imports if that gas had been used entirely for power generation, according to Eco-Business. That volume has displaced some LNG demand. But curtailment limits how far that displacement can extend, and with coal capacity still expanding, the substitution effect remains partial.3
For Asian LNG markets, the arithmetic is consequential. JKM, the Asian LNG benchmark, closed Friday (2026-08-01) at $21.45 per MMBtu. Sustained curtailment — which keeps coal plants running and limits gas-for-power switching — constrains the downward LNG demand pressure that a cleaner Chinese grid would otherwise exert on seaborne cargoes. A grid wasting 170 terawatt-hours per quarter is not displacing as much fossil fuel as installed capacity figures suggest.5
China's government has signalled it intends to address the integration gap through expanded storage deployment and international cooperation on green energy, according to Oilprice.com reporting from Saturday (2026-08-02). But storage additions at 66 gigawatts per year lag far behind the rate at which new intermittent capacity is being commissioned.8,3
The number to track through the second half of 2026 is the curtailment rate itself. If grid upgrades and storage deployment begin absorbing more stranded generation, coal burn could soften and seaborne LNG demand face additional pressure. If curtailment keeps climbing, coal plants run longer, emissions continue rising, and China's clean-energy build-out continues to deliver less to the grid than the installation headlines imply.5,4