One the final numbers are tallied China is expected to have set two new clean energy world records in 2015 – one for installing a record 30.5 gigawatts of wind generation capacity in a single year, and the second for installing 16.5GW of solar capacity.
India is reducing tariffs on solar power by another 7%, having reduced tariffs by 80% over the past five years.
“Following on from reports … that China’s coal consumption declined by 4-5% over 2015, this gives yet more confirmation that the global electricity markets are transforming a great deal faster than anyone actually expected,” Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis director Tim Buckley said.
“The Chinese Wind Energy Association has announced a preliminary estimate of China’s 2015 wind installations at an all-time global record of 30.5GW, 20-30% ahead of even the most optimistic forecasts by financial markets.
“This partly reflects a feed-in-tariff revision to any windfarms completed after January 1, which drove a pull-forward on completions.
“The National Energy Administration’s official tally is due out in February, but we expect this to match the CWEA estimate.
“The total cumulative installed wind capacity across China is estimated to have reached 145GW by end 2015. This is almost double the cumulative installs of 75GW in the US, more than triple the estimated 43GW of wind in Germany and more than five time the 26GW installed to-date in India,” Buckley said.
Germany and India are the third and fourth largest wind generators in the world.
China’s solar installation rates in 2015 are also thought to have set another world record at an estimated 16.5GW, twice Germany’s best ever record of 7.6GW of solar in 2012.
“IEEFA forecasts that China will install an additional 24GW of wind, 16GW of new hydro, a record 6GW of nuclear and another new record of 18-20GW of solar – 60% utility scale and 40% distributed rooftop solar – in 2016,” Buckley said.
“With electricity demand forecast to grow by only 3-4% year-on-year in 2016, this 65GW of additional zero carbon electricity capacity will be more than sufficient to meet total demand growth, such that coal consumption is forecast to fall again in 2016.
“At the same time as China is setting new global records, India continues to announce new achievements of its own to advance the pursuit of its goal to install 175GW of increasingly low cost renewables by 2021 and rapidly improve grid efficiency.”
In India, solar tariffs are now the equivalent of 9.2 cents per kilowatt hour after the government completed a reverse auction for420MW of solar power.
The Indian government has just announced a plan to invest $US11 billion ($A15.6 billion) in rolling out 30 million solar irrigation pumps for farmers over the next 3-4 years.
“Annual savings on existing farm subsidies is modelled at $3bn, suggesting the program is entirely and immediately commercially viable,” Buckley said.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently reported that China’s new investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency rose 17% year-on-year to a record $110 billion in 2015, almost double the U.S. spend of $56 billion, itself up 8% year-on-year.
India's renewables investment rose 23% to $10.9 billion, the highest level since 2011.
