Do new energy power generation companies have better financial performance? An analysis for China’s power generation industry

ABSTRACT Fossil-fired power generation is the most significant contributor to China’s carbon emissions. New energy such as wind and solar is rapidly deploying in China and is considered an alternative to fossil energy. This paper focuses on the comparison in financial performance between fossil-fired generation and new energy generation companies. To do so, we combine the listed companies’ financial data from 2010 to 2020 with the catastrophe progression method to evaluate the financial performance of China’s power generation companies. The results indicate that although the profitability of the fossil-fired generation industry has stagnated in the past ten years, its comprehensive financial performance is still better than that of the new energy industry. The profitability of new energy companies has increased significantly in the past decade, especially the wind energy companies, whose profitability has greatly improved from 2013 to 2020. Wind power generation also has outstanding operating capacity among new energy generations.