Electricity and oil consumption generally goes down during an economic downturn.
China's renewable energy generation capacity (hydro, solar + wind) is about half of its coal capacity, though, and going up all the time - so I wouldn't say that it's all about the downturn.
Its wind output (90 GW) is actually significantly more impressive than solar (18 GW), which is still higher than its nuclear output (15 GW).
Coal is still a whopping 800GW, but I'm pretty confident that it's peaked and they can drag it down significantly over the next 25 years now that renewable energy is pretty much cost-competitive even without subsidies - we're at the point now where your model for the lifetime cost of any form of power (coal/wind/solar) basically depends upon what kind of assumptions you plug in to your cost models, and sensible assumptions usually put all of those forms of power at roughly the same cost and have done since last year.
China doesn't seem averse to using subsidies to tip the market's cost balance in renewables' favor, either, whereas the US is steadily pushing subsidies and tariffs to tip the balance in favor of the oil/fracking companies. Now renewable energy is cost-competitive, politics is primariliy driving its growth (or lack thereof).
China's renewable energy generation capacity (hydro, solar + wind) is about half of its coal capacity, though, and going up all the time - so I wouldn't say that it's all about the downturn.
Its wind output (90 GW) is actually significantly more impressive than solar (18 GW), which is still higher than its nuclear output (15 GW).
Coal is still a whopping 800GW, but I'm pretty confident that it's peaked and they can drag it down significantly over the next 25 years now that renewable energy is pretty much cost-competitive even without subsidies - we're at the point now where your model for the lifetime cost of any form of power (coal/wind/solar) basically depends upon what kind of assumptions you plug in to your cost models, and sensible assumptions usually put all of those forms of power at roughly the same cost and have done since last year.
China doesn't seem averse to using subsidies to tip the market's cost balance in renewables' favor, either, whereas the US is steadily pushing subsidies and tariffs to tip the balance in favor of the oil/fracking companies. Now renewable energy is cost-competitive, politics is primariliy driving its growth (or lack thereof).