11 April 2024 1:01

China responsible for 95% of new coal power construction in 2023, report says

Collectively, China, India, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Turkey, Russia, Pakistan and Vietnam account for 95% of global pre-construction capacity, according to the GEM report.

The 5% remaining is distributed among 21 countries, the tracker finds. Of these, 11 have one project and are on the brink of achieving the “no new coal” milestone, it adds.

The tracker identifies 20.9GW of entirely new coal power proposals outside of China in 2023. This was led by India, which saw 11.4GW of new coal capacity proposed, more than any year since 2016. This was in part due to the revival of several stalled projects in the country, GEM explains.

Kazakhstan also saw 4.6GW of new proposals and Indonesia saw 2.5GW. Some 4.1GW of previously shelved or cancelled capacity is now considered “proposed” again.

Another handful of countries – Russia, the Philippines, Botswana and Nigeria – also saw revived proposals and construction restarting in 2023...

New capacity also came online in Indonesia (5.9GW), India (5.5GW), Vietnam (2.6GW), Japan (2.5GW), Bangladesh (1.9GW), Pakistan (1.7GW), South Korea (1GW), Greece (0.7GW) and Zimbabwe (0.3GW).


Overall, global coal power plant retirements were at their lowest level since 2011...

The world’s operating coal power capacity is up 11% since 2015...

Outside of China, there are still 113GW of coal power projects under construction...

Phasing out unabated coal generation by 2040 – in line with the IEA’s 1.5C pathway – would require an average of 126GW of retirements every year for the next 17 years, GEM notes. This is the equivalent of two coal power plants per week.

Zimbabwe is one of one six countries, beyond China and India, to have increased its total planned capacity over the past year, along with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Zimbabwe, the US and the Philippines.