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Global Coal Production Capacity Rose in 2021

Natural gas shortage and China’s energy crisis have driven global coal plant production capacity to surge last year, undercutting global net zero efforts. 

The global capacity of coal power plants rose by nearly 1% in 2021 as the world recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic and increased attention on energy security, according to a report by a US environmental group Global Energy Monitor (GEM). 

The research found that global coal plant capacity grew 18.2 gigawatts to about 2,100 GW or about 0.87% last year. 

“It’s up by a small number,” said Flora Champenois, a GEM research analyst. “But it comes at a time when the world needs a dramatic fall in capacity, not any rise.”

The small spike can be attributed to a number of new coal plants that opened in China, which just about offset all the coal plant closures around the world in a global effort to cut down greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming. 

China, the world’s top emitter, has pledged to carbon peak by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. But the country has recently turned back to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, due to its domestic energy crisis. To ensure power and heating supply for its residents, China has been increasing coal production capacity and  built more than triple the amount of new coal power capacity as the rest of the world combined.