China's Installed Wind and PV Power Capacity Surpasses Thermal Power for the First Time

On April 25, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced that in Q1 2025, China's combined new installations of wind and PV power reached 74.33 million kW, with cumulative installed capacity reaching 1.482 billion kW (including 536 million kW of wind power and 946 million kW of PV power), surpassing thermal power installed capacity (1.451 billion kW) for the first time. As new installations of wind and PV power continue to grow rapidly in the future, it will become the norm for wind and PV power installed capacity to exceed thermal power.

In Q1, the combined power generation of wind and PV power reached 536.4 billion kWh, accounting for 22.5% of the total electricity consumption nationwide, an increase of 4.3 percentage points YoY (driving the share of non-fossil fuel power generation to reach 39.8%, up 4.8 percentage points YoY). Affected by the rapid growth of wind and PV power and the relatively low YoY growth rate of total electricity consumption nationwide in Q1 (2.5%), the combined power generation of wind and PV power increased by 111 billion kWh YoY, significantly exceeding the increase in total electricity consumption nationwide (58.2 billion kWh).

On April 28, the NEA held a press conference to release the energy situation and the grid connection and operation status of renewable energy in Q1.

In Q1 2025, new installations of renewable energy nationwide reached 76.75 million kW, up 21% YoY, accounting for approximately 90% of the new installations. Among them, hydropower added 2.13 million kW, wind power added 14.62 million kW, solar power added 59.71 million kW, and biomass power added 290,000 kW.

As of the end of March 2025, the installed capacity of renewable energy nationwide reached 1.966 billion kW, up 24% YoY, accounting for approximately 57.3% of China's total installed capacity. Among them, hydropower installed capacity was 438 million kW, wind power installed capacity was 535 million kW, solar power installed capacity was 946 million kW, and biomass power installed capacity was 46 million kW.

Please note that this news is sourced from https://solar.ofweek.com/2025-04/ART-260006-8120-30662103.html and translated by SMM.