China Delivers Crushing Blow to Wind, Solar Power

The country with the most solar and wind power ends all future subsidies

China will stop subsidizing new solar farm projects, distributed solar projects for commercial users, and onshore wind farms as soon as this year, Reuters reported, citing the central planning authority of the country.

The change will enter into effect on August 1 and is a departure from the course set late last year. The country’s finance ministry had previously committed to granting 57 percent more subsidies to solar power projects this year, although it did slash subsidies for wind power.

China is a lesson in progress on using subsidies to support the more extensive deployment of renewable power capacity. For years, Beijing has been pretty generous with these installations, spurring a renewables push that turned it into the country with the greatest solar and wind capacity. Then, in 2018, China dropped a bomb on renewables investors.

“A joint statement put out on Friday by the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance and National Energy Administration said the allocation of quotas for new projects had been halted until further notice, and tariffs on electricity generated from clean energy will be lowered by 0.05 yuan per kilowatt hour, a cut of 6.7 to 9 per cent depending on the region, effective June 1,” the South China Morning Post wrote in 2018.

The news sent solar stocks reeling and the industry in a frenzy. The motivation behind the cut was that Beijing wanted to ensure the local solar industry was sustainable in the original sense of the word over the long term.

Yet the reasons for the cut—and this year’s end of subsidies—were not exactly altruistic. China has amassed a massive debt pile in subsidies owed to wind and solar companies as a result of its previously generous support for new projects. The pile, according to a Bloomberg report from July last year, is worth about $42 billion.

Source: OilPrice.com

8 Comments
  1. ken says

    Wind and solar are a waste of time, money and resources. They are not dependable, require extensive equipment, infrastructure, immense amounts of land, and like digital products, massively pollute when death do them part.

    In my area, Florida, they have installed hundreds of acres of solar panels and the equipment necessary to make the power usable,,, inverters, batteries etc. They use far more power to manufacture, assemble, install and maintain than they’ll ever produce.

    Right now we are experiencing a tropical storm. All those ‘sustainable’ products are wasting space and the auxiliary equipment, inverters, chargers, batteries, etc, wasting mother earths cheap and sustainable oil.

    And last of all,,, they are NOT cheap. As I type, they are installing a 650 acre solar farm. The availability of power from these systems average from 30% to 50% considering nighttime, normal cloud cover and storms.

    And we have to pay for it, All of it! While they get their kickbacks from the sales and installation companies. Today the power company here charges $10 just as a connection fee and its going up. Then they add environmental fees, and taxes as if we are demanding this!

    Solar and wind are 100% scam. Nuclear is 100% scam and downright dangerous to life and the planet. I can remember (real) environmentalists protesting their installation. Note: If/When they can do it without having to store the waste forever it might be viable.

    I cannot think of one thing positive about the supposed ‘sustainable’ energy unless you happen to be in on part of the scam.

    Maybe the Chinese have apparently decided to look at things more logically. Use fuel provided by the earth, limit pollution as much as possible and maybe add some CO2 for the plant life that will increase food production.

    1. SteveK9 says

      Pretty good until ‘nuclear is a scam’ and ‘dangerous to life’.

      1. Mr Reynard says

        Question ?
        Why didn’t they used Thorium Nuclear power station ??
        Why did they had used Uranium 233/235 instead of Thorium ??
        Answer . Simple Thorium doesn’t produce Plutonium & Plutonium is needed to make weapons to kill people …
        Liquid fluoride thoriumreactors are designed to be meltdown proof. A fusible plug at the bottom of the reactor melts in the event of a power failure or if temperatures exceed a set limit, draining the fuel into an underground tank for safe storage. Mining thorium is safer and more efficient than mining uranium.

        1. Eddy says

          L.O.L. that’s the question I’ve been asking for many years, the same time they’ve been rabbiting on about how safe and easy thorium plants would be. Yet not one plant has ever been built. Strange hey ?

    2. dave says

      Nuclear isn’t a scam because it’s dangerous per se – it’s a scam because it costs way too much and takes too long to build out. Fix that and it starts to make a bit more sense

    3. Eddy says

      Solar is not a scam, what IS a scam, are the power companies supplying you with their power. Cut off access to them, install your own solar panels/batteries and give the power companies the finger, you’ll never look back.

  2. Godfree Roberts says

    Clickbait headline. Thanks to years of massive subsidies, Chinese renewables can now pay their own way. That’s good news for the entire planet.

  3. kkk says

    Green fascism is taking over

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