They're not really building anything other than renewables. Nuclear is a rounding error and new coal is just replacing old coal.
Also the average age of Chinese coal power plants is much lower then the average age of US coal power plants. These new Chinese coal power plants could be used for decades.
Last available data from 2025.
https://www.statista.com/chart/36007/power-capacity-of-new-d...
https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-t...
I do not pay attention to the "decommissioning" statistic, because a binary on/off switch is an arbitrary threshold.
Example -- China reduces the output of every coal plant to 1%, they would be "decommissioning" nothing, yet it would be fair to say they've abandoned coal.
That's why it's a better metric to look at change in net coal usage (which is flat or going down in China last year), which factors in non-binary underutilization of old coal plants, as new coal and renewables come online.
From ZeroGravitas in the parallel thread: https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...
The utilization of coal power plant fleet is decreasing, the total amount of produced electricity from coal is decreasing.
"Coal usage" in China is different from "Coal usage for electricity production" in China, as the coal use as a feedstock for chemical and liquid fuels will increase in China.
https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/chi...
In 2025 China mined more coal than in 2024, at the same time China produced less electricity from coal in 2025 than in 2024.
"China's coal output rose to a record in 2025, statistics bureau data showed on Monday, as lower domestic prices prompted buyers to cut imports and rebuild stockpiles with cheaper local supply, although the rise was limited by regulator efforts to curb production growth.
Production in 2025 reached 4.83-billion metric tons, up 1.2% from 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics."
https://www.miningweekly.com/article/china-2025-coal-output-...
But coal was 4.1 million GWh in 2014 and 5.0 million GWh in 2021; that's a lot of (relatively) new coal. Fossil fuel growth since 2023 is a lot less than earlier years, so maybe they have hit saturation for fossil fuel generation. I would expect high fossil fuel prices so far this year would drive usage lower, the stats for 2026 should be interesting.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China
https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...