This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Last year, China generated 834 terawatt-hours of solar power.
Which is more than the G7 countries generated, and more than the US and EU combined. In fact the only country group that generates more solar power than China is the OECD, all 38 countries of it.
Data: @ember-energy.org
Source: https://bsky.app/profile/nathanielbullard.com/post/3lsbbsg6ohk2j
Cool if true, but the source seemed to be bluesky soooo it's a big gain of salt
Yeah I think by "source" they just mean they're just giving credit to the bsky post they got the graph from, the data seems to be from a green energy transition thinktank. No idea if you'd put more stock in ember-energy.org/, so make of that what you will ๐คทโโ๏ธ
From the website:
Data into action
Open data and intelligent policy analysis to unlock a clean, electrified energy future
Yeah, that's where I ended up and didn't know what to do with them. I guess I trust them as much as any unknown internet source
It's great that they are creating that much. They have the largest incentive too, the U.S. second. The G7 they refer to (U.S. U.K. Japan Germany France Italy Canada) used a total of ~7 PWh of electricity in 2023. China used ~9 PWh.
Hopefully the G7 starts catching up. Chinas form of government puts their long term expendetures into play when figuring out where to invest as they have a monetary stake in how much it costs to produce the electricity.
In countries like the U.S. we see companies who have large investments in oil, coal, and such trying to manipulate the transition because they didn't have the investments already in place with alternative energy sources. The U.S. government has no money "invested" per say, so long term they don't care that it costs more during the transition as those profits are made by the companies. The old oil tycoons will milk every penny under the attitude "I got mine.". Then they'll die, and we will hope some companies have transitions in place that bring low cost efficient renewable systems long term
๐ค it was made into fancy graphs by the guy on Bluesky but the data was from ember-energy.org who are well known for supplying renewable stats
It is strategic necessity for China for energy security and for their own environment. Their predominant source of electricity has been coal which they have abundant of but is polluting the air they breathe. Does anyone recall the issues they had at Beijing Olympics? They have insufficient sources of oil and gas domestically. Alternative energy sources are their best domestic source of energy.
Yeah I tracked it back to that, but couldn't find the graph shown and had no knowledge of the ember.
Having said that, I'm all for the green revolution and would love to see it go harder. As a petrol head the idea of guilt free fuel is like a holy grail
Ain't that neat! Do they just happen to be the biggest coalie bois too?
I'm curious how much of it they consumed though. I read recently the UK keeps on paying Wind farms (for example) to NOT supply the grid as they don't need it at certain times, and it wasn't going into batteries for later either. Just generated and...gone?
They pay the windfarms when too much power is generated for the grid to handle. The wind turbines are then throttled accordingly and the windfarm owners are reimbursed for the lost potential. At least that's how it goes in Germany. It's kind of an incentive to upgrade the power grid.
Can be sold as well. I looked at this chart to get numbers, not sure about accuracy. Shows China made around 9.27 PWh and used 8.93 PWh. The G7 used about 7 PWh total.
https://countryeconomy.com/energy-and-environment/electricity-consumption
Edit: realized my typo and now I'm questioning. in Watt hours, does it use Petawatt hours like computers do... I assume? Changed TWh to PWh
