Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Economy

Hydropower Is Surging in China

More evidence the country’s emissions are peaking.

A dam and a Chinese flag.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

It’s raining again in China. Reservoirs are filling, and the country’s massive hydropower complex is generating power at closer to normal capacity after years of drought. This could mean that China’s emissions of greenhouse gases — the largest in the world — may be peaking, or even already have peaked. And as goes China’s emissions, so go the world’s.

Hydro generation has grown 16% through May of this year compared to January through May of last year, according to a Reuters analysis of Chinese government statistics. “Hydro storage is about as good as it’s ever been” in China, Alex Turnbull, an investor and energy researcher based in Singapore, told me.

China produces almost 30% of the world’s hydropower, but output in the country has fallen in recent years due to declines in rainfall. China produced some 1,226 terawatt hours of hydro power in 2023, according to the 2024 Statistical Review of World Energy, down about 5% from 1,298 in 2022 and down substantially from the recent maximum output of 1,322 in 2020. From 2013 to 2023, Chinese hydro output grew by about a third, a 3 percent annual growth rate, during that same period, wind output has grown by over 500%. Solar output, meanwhile, increased by nearly a factor of 70.

Even in spite of this phenomenal growth in wind and solar capacity, hydropower is still China’s largest source of clean energy, according to the clean energy think tank Ember, responsible for 13% of its electricity generation. Almost two-third comes from fossil fuels, largely coal.

The country’s 2022 drought wreaked havoc on China’s economy, with factories going idle for want of power and cities shutting off lights in order to conserve. Globally, hydropower output hit a five-year low in 2023, according to Ember, largely on the back of China’s slump. This meant increased global coal usage, driving up overall power sector emissions by 1% and preventing what would have otherwise been a fall in global power emissions.

“The expectation with more hydro coming back on line is much less coal generation,” Jeremy Wallace, a professor of China studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Heatmap contributor, told me.

The water level in the Yangtze River has risen in the past few weeks due to heavy rainfall, Reuters reported, which is not an unalloyed good — it could also mean more flooding and landslides throughout the summer, government meteorologists projected. Floods in the Yangtze and its tributaries are recurring and tremendous risks in China. Floods in 2011 caused by heavy rain following a drought killing around 200 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

China accounts for about 26% of global emissions, so if its emissions have indeed peaked, that would be very good news for the rest of the world. “China’s economy is growing and it’s using more electricity,” Wallace told me, “but almost all of that electricity growth has been from clean sources.”

China’s carbon dioxide emissions fell slightly in March of this year after rising steadily following the end of its zero-Covid policy in 2022, according to an analysis for CarbonBrief by Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute and lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. That is due in part to the government’s investments in non-emitting energy — 423 terawatt hours per year installed in 2023 alone, “equal to the total electricity consumption of France,” per Myllyvirta’s analysis — and in other part to a transformation in its industrial balance.

Over the past few years, China’s economic engine has shifted from urban construction, dependent on emissions-heavy steel and cement, towards relatively less carbon-intensive manufacturing, Wallace said.

Turnbull shared a similar take. “All the sectors which comprised all the ferocious power demand growth” are “going down” or are “flat to down-ish,” he said, referring to industrial sectors like steel. Meanwhile, “the demand side doesn’t look like it’s growing anywhere near like it is before.”

“I think this is it,” Turnbull said. “This is the peak.”

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
AM Briefing

DAC Hubs May Be DOA

On Trump’s coal woes, NEPA reform, and Japan’s nuclear plans

A Climeworks facility.
Heatmap Illustration/Climeworks

Current conditions: In the Atlantic, the tropical storm that could, as it develops, take the name Jerry is making its way westward toward the U.S. • In the Pacific, Hurricane Priscilla strengthened into a Category 2 storm en route to Arizona and the Southwest • China broke an October temperature record with thermometers surging near 104 degrees Fahrenheit in the southeastern province of Fujian.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Energy Department looks ready to cancel direct air capture hubs

The Department of Energy appears poised to revoke awards to two major Direct Air Capture Hubs funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in Louisiana and Texas, Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo reported Tuesday. She got her hands on an internal agency project list that designated nearly $24 billion worth of grants as “terminated,” including Occidental Petroleum’s South Texas DAC Hub and Louisiana's Project Cypress, a joint venture between the DAC startups Heirloom and Climeworks. An Energy Department spokesperson told Emily that he was “unable to verify” the list of canceled grants and said that “no further determinations have been made at this time other than those previously announced,”referring to the canceled grants the department announced last week. Christoph Gebald, the CEO of Climeworks, acknowledged “market rumors” in an email, but said that the company is “prepared for all scenarios.” Heirloom’s head of policy, Vikrum Aiyer, said the company wasn’t aware of any decision the Energy Department had yet made.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Politics

How a Children’s Hospital Became Collateral Damage in the Government Shutdown

Last week’s Energy Department grant cancellations included funding for a backup energy system at Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera, California

Valley Children's Hospital.
Heatmap Illustration/Valley Children's Healthcare, Getty Images

When the Department of Energy canceled more than 321 grants in an act of apparent retribution against Democrats over the government shutdown, Russ Vought, President Trump’s budget czar, declared that the money represented “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda.”

At least one of the grants zeroed out last week, however, was supposed to help keep the lights on at a children’s hospital.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Podcast

How China’s Power Grid Really Works

Rob and Jesse break down China’s electricity generation with UC San Diego’s Michael Davidson.

Xi Jinping.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

China announced a new climate commitment under the Paris Agreement at last month’s United Nations General Assembly meeting, pledging to cut its emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035. Many observers were disappointed by the promise, which may not go far enough to forestall 2 degrees Celsius of warming. But the pledge’s conservatism reveals the delicate and shifting politics of China’s grid — and how the country’s central government and its provinces fight over keeping the lights on.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk to Michael Davidson, an expert on Chinese electricity and climate policy. He is a professor at the University of California, San Diego, where he holds a joint faculty appointment at the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Jacobs School of Engineering. He is also a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he was previously the U.S.-China policy coordinator for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Keep reading...Show less