China has added 256 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity in just six months — more than the entire solar infrastructure ever built by the United States of America.
That’s enough clean energy to power over 40 million homes, marking the fastest renewable expansion in human history.
This rapid growth is part of China’s ambitious plan to dominate the global clean energy race. Experts estimate that by 2026, renewables will surpass coal as China’s main source of electricity — a monumental shift for the world’s largest energy consumer.
Massive solar farms stretching across deserts like Tengger and Qinghai are reshaping the global energy map.
Meanwhile, as U.S. investments in renewables face political and regulatory slowdowns, China’s momentum underscores a new reality: the future of energy leadership may already have changed hands.
Between January and May, 2025, China added 198 GW of solar and 46 GW of wind, enough to generate as much electricity as Indonesia or Turkey.
China installed 93 GW of solar capacity in May alone – almost 100 solar panels every second, according to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Wind power installations reached 26 GW, the equivalent of about 5,300 turbines.
While estimates for the amount of power generated by solar panels and wind turbines vary depending on their location and weather conditions, Myllyvirta calculated that May’s installations alone could generate as much electricity as Poland, Sweden or the United Arab Emirates.
China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases but is also the world’s biggest supplier and installer of clean energy technology.
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, is increasingly connecting China’s climate ambitions with the growth of the clean energy technology sector, which he sees as vital to boosting China’s flagging economy.
Xi highlighted the fact that in the past five years China has built “the world’s largest and most complete new energy industry chain”. The term new energy refers to renewables and supporting technology such as batteries.
But the hyper-competitiveness of China’s economy is also putting pressure on clean energy firms, with prices of solar panels barely covering the cost of production.
In the first quarter of this year, China’s five biggest solar companies reported a combined loss of over 8 billion yuan (about US$1,124,005,600), according to Bloomberg. At a recent conference, Yang Liyou, the general manager of Jinneng Technology, described the industry as being in a “death cycle”, according to Chinese media.
