Fact! The World's Surge in Coal-Fired Power Plants in 2025, Yet Low Coal Usage

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia — The world is constructing and operating more coal-fired steam power plants (PLTU) in 2025. However, it has emerged that global coal use is also relatively low. This was reported by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) on Wednesday. The report says that rising affordability and abundance of renewable energy, particularly solar and wind, are claimed to meet the electricity needs of the majority of people globally. “This helps lower global coal-fired electricity production by 0.6% in 2025 compared with the previous year,” the report said, quoted by Global Energy Monitor, which has tracked coal-fired power plants for more than a decade, as reported by AFP on Thursday (21 May 2026). In detail, production declines, the capacity of coal-fired plants that began operations or were in operation, rose by 3.5% last year. The vast majority of that, 95%, is in China and India. “China’s coal-fired capacity grew by 6% last year, but coal-fired electricity production fell by 1.2%, partly due to rapid growth in renewable energy capacity,” it said. “The same occurred in India, where capacity grew by almost 4%, although production fell by almost 3%,” the agency added. According to Christine Shearer, project manager of the Global Coal Plant Tracker GEM and co-author of the report, many provinces and states in China and India leading coal development are major energy-producing regions. They, she said, have “strong industrial incentives to continue building coal-fired power plants”. It should be noted that China views coal as a reliable solution for supplying renewable energy that is unstable, especially after electricity shortages in recent years. India, the world’s most populous country, is heavily dependent on coal to meet surging electricity demand. Meanwhile, the United States is now the country building the most coal-fired plants. This is due to delays in ending coal-fired plants by the government. “US coal-fired power generation has increased by more than 80 TWh year on year, a figure so large that no other country comes close,” said Shearer. “The surge is not only a function of growth in demand, but also reflects a policy environment that is actively encouraging it,” she added. Globally, coal-fired power generation has risen 0.3% year-to-date. In contrast, wind and solar power generation has jumped 10%.