Comment by alexey-salmin
8 hours ago
That's unlikely. It takes 2 to 8 years to recover the electricity used to produce a photovoltaics panel, before it can even begin to offset anything.
Given that the majority of these panels was installed very recently, most likely they didn't even offset themselves yet, let alone any of the exports.
That's confirmed by the fact that coal generation in China keeps growing to this day, any of the "offsets" so far are purely imaginary.
Given surplus over lifespan @ 10% of energy generation is more than enough to assume solar is going to be energetically self-sustaining as a sector.
Before 4x expanding solar push in 2023 they hit solar generation/production breakpoint in 2021/2022, as in surplus generation from old panels generated enough to pay back energy production of new panels. So absolute offset not imaginary, new breakpoint for current production rate is going to be 2027/28 unless they 4x again in next 2 years, i.e. 16x production from 2021, it will be functionally completely offset sector in a couple years. Nitpicking about coal or how solar is subsidizing coal with that on the horizon is are imaginary.
What solar+renewables is doing is reduce coal from ~70% to ~50% of energy mix even though absolute coal #s increased due to massive increase in demand/supply. The offset is that 20% shift over decade where generation 2x, hence actual offset to coal expansion by 40%.
Regardless with EPBT of ~3 years (less after breakpoint), and 25-30y lifespace, it's one of those 2nd best time to plant a tree is today situations. There isn't a solid reason not to hammer cheap PRC solar at scale outside of geopolitics.