China and India Doubled Power Generation Over Last Ten Years

China and India both roughly doubled their electricity generation over the last ten years. China will likely slow down electricity generation to a 50-70% increase by 2030. India will likely still double power usage.

India currently has the third-highest power generation in the world. India consumed 1636 TWh of electricity in 2018. This was behind China at 7051 TWh and the USA at 4417 TWh. Russia was fourth with 1127 TWh.

India is expected to increase electricity consumption to 3000 TWh in 2030. China will likely be generating about 12000 TWh in 2030.

19 thoughts on “China and India Doubled Power Generation Over Last Ten Years”

  1. Yes. Variable demand requires constant supply. Otherwise the entire system is put at risk. Untrained dimwits think you can match erratic supply with variable demand.

  2. I find the people who knock solar and wind to be a bit ignorant of the way an electric distribution system works. They talk about variability in production as if there wasn’t a variability in demand. in the morning, businesses open and elevators go up, in the evening, the opposite occurs. Utilities buy the best weather forecast money can buy then they figure out what the daily demand will be in 15 mins increments. They then buy power to match their demand. And they will spin up reserves and buy capacity as insurance.

  3. You are thinking real short term. In longer term most of those failed states will be no longer failed state. BTW, Europe had plenty of fail states even up to now. Think NAZI Germany, Fascist Italy, Spain, Portugal, Serbia, Communist East Europe and the Soviet Union. The transmission lines will be built. Most of the power consumed during the day occurs in the day while the sun is still shining. Then there is wind power and biomass. Sandstorms would be a vast source of wind power.

  4. It is not that solar boosters are insane. They are ignorant and inexperienced on the topic of large scale electric power generation, transmission, distribution and utilization. But the fact that they are willing to destroy the advanced societies of the world to force their visions through does hint at some type of derangement.

  5. All of that 125GW was partially constructed already as of around 2016. They’re just finishing them now. Plans for more? Nope

  6. China has themselves admitted that they’ve underreported coal consumption (and CO2 emissions) by about 20%. That is not a huge surprise, knowing how the utilities are incentivized. By the way, this “underreporting of CO2” has yet to be factored into the UN and other “official” figures, and more importantly the climate models.

    But what most probably aren’t aware of is that most of the big China coal plants are pretty CO2 efficient these days. The smog has improved, somewhat. For instance, China has over 90 ultra-supercritical coal plants (the US has only one). The state gave the utilities huge amounts of money the past few years to upgrade the plants. this covers about 85GW of production, but there is still about 900GW of coal plants to go.

    And, contrary to what “everyone” seems to think, China is ADDING to the coal power system, and about 125GW is under construction as we speak.

    China is, by far, the biggest contributor to future CO2 and they don’t give a rat’s ass to the so-called Paris Agreement. Meanwhile, let’s ban plastic straws.

  7. No, try again. Though places like Kenya and Botswana have pretty decent geothermal. Solar in the Sahara? My friend, I think you might have sunstroke. Not only intermittent, but getting that power (via new HVDC lines) through a thicket of some really failed states to your own failed state is not exactly “economical”. Then you’ve got the issue of sandstorms (about every third day), so you need to clean them (with water?). It’s the LAST place you want to build solar.

    Africa’s power source of the future is hydrocarbons, unless hydrogen becomes cost effective.

  8. the cheapest way are hydrocarbons, primarily oil/diesel and coal fired. SSA will not very likely get nuclear and natgas-fired is potentially an option but unlikely. Basically, the energy market there are old diesel ship engines bought for scrap prices and converted into land-based power systems.

    The Lamu project is completely idiotic and was designed to enrich a couple local bigwigs and their Chinese pals. The PPA was written with a guaranteed offtake regardless of actual power output and the rates scalable to CPI. I’m glad it’s been suspended though the EPC, funding, PPA etc is still in place. Kenya though has some great geothermal resources.

    The Eskom bankrutcy has nothing to do with their coal investments. You can easily run a utility company profitably. Eskom is corrupt. Money for maintenance and securing coal supplies has been lining the pockets of the managers and the government, basically a piggy bank disguised as a power utlility.

    China still has ambitious coal power export plans regardless of the Lamu outcome. Hopefully other countries will realize the folly of investing in this China scheme, but it’s about handouts to the politicians. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/09/when-coal-came-to-paradise-china-coal-kenya-lamu-pollution-africa-chinese-industry-bri/

  9. We know how much Coal, Oil and Gas China buys. We know how much stuff they sell. We know how many power stations are pumping out smoke. We can see the roads, railways, ships… and we can see the lights on at night.

    Sure China probably manipulates their numbers even more than western countries do, but you can’t hide a factor of 4. If you try to claim a factor of 4 or so it just ends up looking like North Korea.

  10. Renewable? Africa straddles the equator. In fact, in the north there exist the largest dessert in the world. Large enough so its solar power could supply the entire world.

  11. The vid talks about change in country energy output from 1973.

    During the Roman era, the main energy source was hydro and wind. Coal was sparsely used, wood was expensive. There are some studies that have looked at per capita energy-caloric values in places like Rome itself, but can’t find it. China used quite a lot of natural gas as fuel hundreds of years BC, so there’s that. I gather the Inca’s were big on coca.

  12. In the next 30 years, sub-sahara Africa will require 2x Chinas in terms of electricity production. Given the countries there aren’t exactly swimming in money, guess what is the cheapest way to make said power?

  13. What sort of graph of electricity consumption in 2018 has to mention there is no data on the Soviet Union?

    Was there data on Roman Empire for 2018? The Incas?

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