China is building more wind and solar than the rest of the world combined.
So why is coal still riding shotgun on the power lines carrying it home?
A new Global Energy Monitor report just answered that — and the number is uncomfortable.
Here's the setup.
China's green power isn't made where people live.
It's made in the empty, windy north.
Then shipped east — to Shanghai, to factories, to cities — through giant ultra-high-voltage cables called UHVDC lines.
Think of them as the country's energy highways.
Problem is, look at what's actually flowing through those highways:
Policymakers keep calling coal a "supporting player" in China's grid.
The transmission data says otherwise.
The 11 megabase transmission lines currently proposed carry 129 GW of wind and solar…
alongside 40 GW of coal.
Almost a 50-50 split.
That's not support. That's a co-dependency.
And the scale keeps climbing — 315 GW of megabase capacity will need new transmission by 2030, requiring 27 UHVDC lines.
China's current plan builds just 10.
Instead of leaning on coal plants to smooth out cloudy days and calm winds, GEM's Aiqun Yu says: use batteries.
One project already shows it can work.
The Kubuqi-to-Shanghai line pairs renewables (over 60% of its volume) with 9,000 MWh of storage — and needs only 2.64 GW of coal, versus 4 GW on comparable lines.
"A small step forward," Yu called it.
Zoom out, and the paradox gets bigger.
China's non-fossil power capacity crossed 52% of the total earlier this year — a genuine milestone.
Yet it's still commissioning more new coal plants in 2026 than any other country on Earth.
With 664 GW of solar and 698 GW of wind either planned or under construction — a third and a quarter of the entire world's pipeline, respectively — China isn't short on green electrons.
It's short on wires willing to carry them alone.
That's all for now!
