A slowing economy and the rapid growth of wind and solar have blunted demand for coal in China. Increasingly, producers are selling coal overseas.
Exports in the first five months of 2025 are up 13 percent over the same period last year, Bloomberg reports, with Japan, Indonesia, and South Korea the top buyers of Chinese coal. At the same time, imports are shrinking, an unusual development for early summer, when China is typically stockpiling coal to meet demand for power during the hottest months of the year.
The Chinese economy is currently coping with high U.S. tariffs, weak consumer spending, and a downturn in the property market. A slowdown in construction has hurt demand for steel, and with it, the use of coal in steelmaking. In the power sector, the boom in wind and solar has curbed the growth of fossil fuels, with coal prices now at a four-year low.
In April, for the first time, wind and solar generated more than a quarter of China’s electricity, according to energy think tank Ember. Analysts say the era of “more renewables, more coal” is over, with solar and wind now set to displace coal, rather than supplement it. “Even under conservative assumptions,” they write, “coal generation in China could soon peak and enter structural decline.”
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