A striking chart made the rounds this week, showing that solar energy has now eclipsed coal in China when measured by installed capacity. The milestone looks like a victory for renewables, and in some ways it is. But the reality is more complicated: solar is beating coal only in name. Its share of electricity actually generated remains a fraction of coal's output.
That gap comes down to physics. Solar panels sit idle at night and produce little on cloudy days, so a gigawatt of solar capacity delivers far fewer hours of electricity per year than a gigawatt of coal plant. When Chinese planners look at dispatch, coal still runs most of the time. The new chart is a useful reminder that capacity is not the same as contribution—and that the country's energy transition has a long way to go before solar truly outperforms coal in powering the grid.