{"id":817300,"date":"2026-07-22T20:50:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T20:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817300\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T20:50:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T20:50:40","slug":"chinas-world-leading-renewable-megabases-rely-on-coal-heavy-transmission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817300\/","title":{"rendered":"China’s world-leading renewable megabases rely on coal-heavy transmission"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beijing: China is building more large-scale wind and solar \u200bthan the rest of the \u200bworld combined, but inadequate transmission links and a continued \u200breliance on coal-fired power are limiting its use, according to a report published on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Wind and solar make up around 20% of the power sent through China’s ultra-high voltage \u200cdirect current (UHVDC) transmission \u2060network, little \u2060changed since 2021, while 42% is from coal, the Global Energy Monitor<\/a> said.
Under \u200bChina’s energy megabases policy, green power is generated in the sparsely populated north and northwest \u200band sent via ultra-high voltage direct current (UHVDC) transmission lines to power cities and factories in the east.<\/p>\n

Read More: ACME Solar inks PPA with SECI to supply power from 300MW wind-solar project<\/a><\/p>\n

Some 315GW of megabase capacity will need \u200boutbound transmission by 2030, requiring 27 UHVDC lines, the \u2060report said. China \u200caims to have 10 under its five-year plan \u200bfor 2026-2030.<\/p>\n

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\u200bThe current 11 proposed transmission lines dedicated to megabases combine \u2060129 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar with 40 GW of \u200bcoal, and the projected electricity mix is split \u200balmost evenly between coal and renewables, the report said.
The high proportion of coal is hard to square with policymakers’ framing of coal as having only a supporting role in China’s power system, said report author Aiqun Yu, senior East Asia strategist for GEM.Yu said renewables bases \u200cshould use energy storage technologies<\/a> to back up intermittent renewables, instead of coal.<\/p>\n

Read More: Power producer Resolven bags 200 MW wind project from SECI<\/a><\/p>\n

For example, a proposed UHVDC line from Inner \u200bMongolia’s Kubuqi to \u200bShanghai has renewables making \u2060up more than 60% of the planned transmission volume, backed up by 9,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy storage and 2.64 GW of coal where \u200bother similar projects have 4GW. “This is a small step forward,” Yu said.<\/p>\n

As of June 2026, China had 664 GW of solar planned or under construction, making up one-third of the global total, the report found. China has 698 GW of proposed wind capacity, or one-quarter of the global total.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beijing: China is building more large-scale wind and solar \u200bthan the rest of the \u200bworld combined, but inadequate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,392815,392816,216633,392809,392813,75,219198,392814,392811,128,392812,392810],"class_list":["post-817300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-china-electricity-mix","tag-china-power-system","tag-china-renewable-energy","tag-coal-fired-power-china","tag-energy-storage-technologies","tag-environment","tag-global-energy-monitor","tag-megabase-policy","tag-renewable-energy-transmission","tag-science","tag-uhvdc-transmission-lines","tag-wind-and-solar-capacity-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}