China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reports that China has currently halted construction on new coal-fired power plants to avoid building over-capacity while simultaneously hoping to promote a cleaner energy mix. Xinhua News Agency reported that China halted construction on 150 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power generation capacity between 2016 and 2020. Overall, the Chinese government is aiming to keep the country’s total coal power capacity below 1,100 GW by 2020. China reported toward the end of 2014 that its coal use had dropped by 1.28% — the first time coal use had declined in China this century. Not long after, China’s coal consumption and CO2 emissions were reported to both have dropped in 2014. This was the beginning of a trend which we have seen play out over the last few years. Figures over the first few months of 2015 showed that coal use only continued to fall, inevitably leading to a coal consumption decline in 2016 of 3.7%. Toward the end of 2016 and over the first few months of 2017, China announced the cancellation of 30 large coal-fired power plants, followed soon after by the cancellation of 104 more under-construction and planned coal projects. Unsurprisingly, therefore, China’s coal use declined further in 2016, down by 4.7% over 2015 levels, while coal’s contribution to overall energy consumption declined by 2% to 62%.
—via Clean Technica