This doesn't mean what you think it does:

- China is also decommissioning older plants.

- These new coal plants aren't running 24x7

- Peak coal usage is likely to be very soon in China (this year even according to some); after that coal usage flatten and start declining; all the way to a planned net zero in the 2060s.

The newer plants are designed to be more efficient, more flexible, and less polluting than the older ones. They are better at starting/stopping quickly/cheaply. Older coal plants used big boilers that had to heat up to build up steam before being able to generate power. This makes stopping and starting a plant slow and expensive. Because they consume a lot of fuel just to get the plant to the stage where it can actually generate power. The more often plants have to be stopped and started, the more wasteful this is. With the newer plants this is less costly and faster.

This makes them more suitable to be used in a non base load operational model where they can be spun up/down on a need to have basis. This is essential in a power grid that is dominated by the hundreds of GW of solar, wind, and battery.