The scale of Chinese production since 2010 has driven the price of these technologies down by 60 to 90 percent, the researchers found. And last year, more than 90 percent of wind and solar projects commissioned worldwide produced power more cheaply than the cheapest available fossil-fuel alternative, they said. That cost advantage might have seemed laughable before China began pumping billions of dollars of subsidies into the sector.
they build coal power capacity, i.e. power plants that can turn coal into electricity.
the twist is, they’re not actually using that capacity. They produced just as much electricity from coal this year than last, even though the capacity for production increased. In other words, as they’re building more capacity, they’re utilizing it to smaller degrees, sothat the total production stays the same.