While China leads the world in wind energy capacity, its struggles to connect that clean energy to the grid are wasting money and resulting in unnecessary coal consumption, according to a new Paulson Institute report. Last year, 15% of China’s wind energy was wasted, or “curtailed,” up from 8% in 2014. From 2011 to 2015, wind curtailment cost China’s energy sector RMB 51 billion (US$7.7 billion), equal to the cost of 200,000 new electric vehicles. Since energy transmission planning in China is biased in favor of coal power, the wasted wind energy resulted in unneeded consumption of 430 million tons of coal. The report examines the renewable energy integration success stories of Texas and Germany to provide a solution for China: focus on investing in coordinated energy transmission, set targets and timelines for reducing renewable energy wastage, and reform energy markets to respond efficiently to supply and demand.