Coal supplied 51.4% of China’s energy in 2025, down 1.8 percentage points from the year before. Natural gas, hydropower, nuclear, wind and solar together supplied 30.4%.
That split sits behind the country’s standing as the world’s largest energy consumer and its largest industrial economy. China also leads the world in renewable output, including hydroelectricity, solar and wind. It is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases too, and coal is the main reason.
Coal still runs the system
China produces and consumes more coal than any other country. Analysis from 2016 suggested its coal use peaked in 2014, yet the building has not stopped. In 2023 China commissioned 47.4 gigawatts of new coal plants, about two-thirds of the global increase in coal capacity that year and the largest annual jump in capacity started by any country since 2015.
Beijing has pledged to peak coal consumption by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060. The push to meet those goals closed many small coal mines, and Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi capped output. In September 2021 the result was power outages in several northeastern provinces and a coal shortage elsewhere. The National Development and Reform Commission relaxed some environmental standards, power plants were allowed to defer tax payments, and trade rules were bent to let in a small amount of Australian coal. The shortage eased within weeks.
Oil and gas come from abroad
China has imported oil since the 1990s and first became dependent on it in 1993, when demand outran domestic output. By 2014 it was bringing in roughly 7 million barrels a day. Sinopec, CNPC and CNOOC dominate the home market and are active in gas, LNG imports and pipelines.
Gas deals tie China to its neighbours and to distant suppliers. In May 2014 it signed a 30-year contract with Russia for 38 billion cubic metres of gas a year, delivered by the Power of Siberia pipeline. A second route, Power of Siberia 2, has been proposed from the West Siberian basin to the northwest of China. In November 2021 Venture Global LNG agreed a 20-year supply contract with Sinopec, a deal that would more than double China’s imports of U.S. gas.
Power capacity
China’s installed generating capacity stood at 1,247 GW in 2013, the largest in the world, against 874 GW in 2009. By 2023 most of its installed electricity capacity came from renewable sources.
