Chinese reliance
The IEA says China’s share of every major manufacturing stage for solar panels exceeds 80 per cent, after investing more than US$50 billion in new solar PV supply capacity and adding more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs across the sector since 2011.
China also manufactured well over 80 per cent of all batteries in 2025, the IEA said last month. Battery factories in Europe and the United States still rely heavily on components imported from China.
China’s scale is not just industrial. Clean electricity output rose 15.4 per cent in 2025 to 4,326 terawatt hours (TWh), driven by a 43 per cent jump in solar generation and a 14 per cent increase in wind, Reuters reported in January. China’s total electricity output climbed 5 per cent to a record 10,421 TWh.
At the same time, China’s clean-tech exports surged more than 20 per cent in 2025 to about US$222 billion, including US$82 billion in batteries, US$69 billion in EVs, roughly US$19 billion in grid components and about US$17 billion in heating and cooling equipment.
China is not just decarbonizing its own grid, it’s mass-producing the tools other countries may use to escape fossil-fuel volatility.