BEIJING - China commissioned 21 gigawatts (GW) of coal power plant capacity in the first half of 2025, a new report found on Monday, the highest since 2016 even as the country is building record amounts of clean energy.

"The commissioning boom of 2025 reflects a delayed response to the permitting surge of 2022–2023," wrote the authors of the report by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

That surge in turn was a response to power shortages and blackouts in 2021 and 2022, as supply disruptions and higher coal prices collided with tighter emissions standards just as China's economic output was recovering from the first phase of the pandemic.

Projections by industry group the China Electricity Council showing that 80GW of coal could be commissioned for the full year would make 2025 the biggest year for new coal power capacity additions in a decade, the CREA report said.

New approvals of coal power projects in the first half of the year, however, fell slightly from recent years, to 25GW.

"The core tension of 2025 is increasingly evident: coal's share in power generation has fallen to record lows, yet new coal power capacity additions are on track to reach decade highs," the researchers wrote.

"Broad capacity payments, inflexible dispatch practices, long-term contracting, and the absence of a national retirement pathway all serve to keep coal power in place, regardless of whether it's still needed."

China has committed to phasing down coal use during the 2026-2030 period and says that coal power is meant to serve as a back-up to clean energy going forward, but the CREA researchers said that's not happening in practice because of a lack of incentives to phase down coal power generation.

China's National Energy Administration did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Soaring renewables growth has brought progress on carbon emissions despite the continued use of coal, with China's CO2 emissions falling 1% in the first half of the year, according to a CREA analysis last week.