In recent analyses such as “Land of the Waning Sun,” the economic commentary publication Doomberg argues that China’s breakneck expansion of solar power has hit a critical wall of diminishing returns, forcing Beijing to tap the brakes on new installations due to severe grid integration limits, rising waste, and structural economic damage.
Core Arguments from Doomberg:
Grid Saturation and Waste: The rapid, uncoordinated surge in solar and wind capacity has overwhelmed local transmission infrastructure, leading to surging curtailment rates (wasted renewable power) in far-flung provinces.
The Dispatchability Problem: Intermittent solar generation lacks the reliability of traditional baseload power, creating acute stability issues for an electricity grid that remains heavily anchored by coal.
Forced Retrenchment: Rather than a permanent transition to a green utopia, the physical and economic limits of overbuilding solar are forcing a sharp slowdown in new construction and a pivot toward curbing excess industrial capacity.