In total, 64GW of coal capacity was retired last year, mainly in the US and EU. Paul Massara, the former chief executive of RWE Npower and now head of a green energy company, North Star Solar, said: “The decline in new coal plants in Asian countries is truly dramatic, and shows how a perfect storm of factors are simply making coal a bad investment.” Myllyvirta said that in India the decline was down to slower-than-expected growth in energy demand, and renewable energy projects being installed rapidly. That policy shows no sign of stopping – at the weekend, Beijing ordered its last coal-fired power plant to close in a bid to improve the capital’s air quality. Lauri Myllyvirta, a Beijing-based energy analyst at Greenpeace and author of the report, said the fall in China was largely down to government policy to clean up air pollution and encourage clean energy. Most coal power stations are around 1GW or greater in capacity. The report, which tracked power stations through publicly available information, company reports and satellite imagery, said 65GW of new coal-fired units had started construction between January 2016 and January 2017, down 62% on the 170GW the year before. Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the IEEFA, a pro-green energy thinktank, said the falling demand for coal power in China and India and plans to curtail new power stations shows that the world has overestimated the need for the fossil fuel.
One of the reasons for the fall in new plants was that too much capacity had been built in recent years, particularly in China.
Researchers for the groups said a record amount of coal power station capacity was also retired globally last year, mostly in the US and EU, including Scotland closing its last one.
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