Chinese solar capacity passes coal

Wednesday 2 September 2026

To great fanfare.

This is not quite as salubrious as it seems.

This is installed capacity, not actual electricity produced. On that measure, solar and wind are still well behind coal.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.