The global coal power capacity marked the first growth in 2023 since 2019, despite urgent calls for a 6% annual closure rate to avert a climate crisis.
According to a report by Global Energy Monitor, coal power capacity expanded by 2% driven by new plants in China and reduced closures in Europe and the US.
The report reveals that approximately 69.5 gigawatts (GW) of coal plant capacity came online last year, with China accounting for two-thirds of the new capacity.
Additionally, new plants were commissioned in Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Japan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Korea, Greece, and Zimbabwe.
Conversely, the slowdown in coal plant retirements in the US and Europe saw over 21GW taken offline. This resulted in a net annual increase of nearly 48.5 GW, the largest since 2016.
The report emphasized the need for an accelerated pace of coal plant closures, urging China to implement stricter controls on capacity expansion.
What the stakeholders said
Flora Champenois, Coal Program Director for Global Energy Monitor, said that Coal’s fortunes this year are an anomaly, as all signs point to reversing course from this accelerated expansion.
- “But countries that have coal plants to retire need to do so more quickly, and countries that have plans for new coal plants must make sure these are never built.
- Otherwise, we can forget about meeting our goals in the Paris Agreement and reaping the benefits that a swift transition to clean energy will bring,” Champenois said.
Danielle Koh, Policy Analyst at Reclaim Finance said GEM’s report shows clearly that global coal capacity outside China is moving in the right direction for the climate. But we need to speed up the phaseout.
- “If we are to meet the International Energy Agency’s 2040 phaseout deadline, two coal plants need to close every week. This will not happen without action from policymakers to provide the regulatory frameworks needed or support from private financial institutions.
- And at the same time, banks and investors must stop supporting coal expansion or the phaseout will be futile,” Koh said.
The report also shows:
- The Group of Seven (G7) major industrial countries account for 15% (310 GW) of the world’s operating coal capacity, down from 23% (443 GW) in 2015. With the completion of new units in Japan in 2023, the G7 no longer has any coal in construction but is still home to one proposal in Japan and two in the U.S.
- The Group of Twenty (G20) is home to 92% of the world’s operating coal capacity (1,968 GW) and 88% of the pre-construction coal capacity (336 GW).
- The current G20 chair, Brazil, saw its total pre-construction capacity decrease, but the country still has two projects remaining, the last ones in Latin America.
- China and the ten countries following it account for 95% of the global pre-construction capacity. The remaining 5% is distributed among 21 countries, eleven of which have only one project and are on the brink of achieving the “no new coal” milestone.
- In 2023, the decrease in proposed coal outside of China was tempered by 20.9 GW of entirely new proposals, led by India (11.4 GW), Kazakhstan (4.6 GW), and Indonesia (2.5 GW), as well as 4.1 GW of previously shelved or canceled capacity considered proposed again.