China goes electricity star-news.press/wp

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Between January and May this year, China added enough solar energy and wind To operate a country Indonesia size.

This is just the beginning. In April alone, China installed more solar energy than Australia was built in full history. In May, the country installed solar panels on Average of approximately 100 per secondThe pace of fracture does not show any signs of slowdown. The transformation began to a high level when electricity finally outperformed the oil in the power mix in China for the first time in 2023, and has not accelerated until then.

The unprecedented scale for the construction of renewable energy in China creates the first major “electrostat” in the world – an economy that increases electricity instead of direct fossil fuel consumption. This transformation has effects that go beyond climate policy, which reshapes global trade flows and energy security dynamics, as China reduces its dependence on imported oil while dumping global markets with clean, cheap technology.

Energy security gambling in Shi

Speed ​​is not accidental. When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he determined the reliability of energy as a decisive security vulnerability for an increasing great power. Even with all the new renewable energy, China still imports more oil than any other country, as many of them flow through the selection points such as the South China Sea that can be cut into conflict. The path electrification provides the path of escape in which Shi threw the full weight of the Chinese state behind it.

The batch was not driven by climate fears, but by calculating cold geopolitical differentiation. like Tell the Chinese energy analyst Broadcasting Company in Australia: “Energy is basic inputs of economic activities. Energy security is very important because it is very important to support the working economy.”

Climate benefits, however, cannot be denied. For the first time in 2025, carbon dioxide emissions in China have already decreased despite rapid economic growth, According to the carbon shortcut. Clean energy exports in China in 2024 threw 1 percent of global emissions outside China.

Clean energy now represents 10 % of GDP in ChinaExceeding real estate as an economic engine. The sector has achieved a quarter of China’s growth last year, providing a decisive batch of an economy that is struggling with the slowdown and real estate crisis. What started as energy security has become an economic necessity.

The effects of China’s borders. Chinese companies are now dominating the global supply chains of solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicle batteries. The country’s manufacturing scale has shattered the price of clean technology around the world, with Chinese solar panels It costs 90 % less than They did a decade ago, which made energy transition within the reach of developing countries that have not been able to reach before.

Perhaps more importantly, China now keeps Almost 700,000 patents are clean energy – More than half of the total of the world. This is not only about manufacturing anymore; It comes to controlling the intellectual property that will determine the next century of energy technology. Especially since President Trump is following the “drilling, child, drilling” agenda, and is wrapped in the incentives of clean energy.

The timing cannot be more perfect for China’s strategy. Just as the largest technology companies in the world scramble for huge amounts of clean energy that operates around the clock throughout the week to provide artificial intelligence data centers, China has placed itself as a supplier of renewable energy technology. While American technology giants are signing deals to restart nuclear factories such as Three Mile Island, China is already manufacturing solar panels and batteries that can The power of the artificial intelligence revolution More cheap.

Long game

The race will be operated between American fossil fuels and Chinese clean technology over decades, not years. The United States still has many customers for its huge stores of oil, gas and coal – nearly 80 % of global energy needs still meet fossil fuels, According to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

China’s bet is not without risks. The country’s clean energy sector displays signs of stress from excessive competition, with major solar energy companies Reporting the common losses of more than one billion dollars In the first quarter of this year. Industry executives Description “death cycle” prices It barely covers production costs. Meanwhile, China New renewable energy pricing policyWhich removes the guaranteed prices for wind and solar projects, created uncertainty that may slow down the Breakneck installation.

But China has paid more than half of the growth of global demand for oil demand for decades, making its axis to local renewable energy a blow to Petrostate. IEA expects oil, gas and coal to decrease to less than 60 % of global energy needs by mid -century. China puts itself to capture the clean energy market that will fill the gap.

The question is not whether the world will eventually become electric, with low costs and improvement of technology, which makes this transition inevitable. The question is whether China will control technologies, supply chains and patents that make it possible.