How is the power being generated for all this manufacturing capacity?
60% coal, some baseload nuclear (5%), renewables (30%). They have massive dams (14% of electricity IIRC).
Coal share is shrinking, a lot.
Today, capacity factor of coal plants is below 50% (that's why you always see China builds coal plants... that stand idle) and their coal consumption has been more or less flat for a decade. The plan is to use coal plans when wind doesn't blow and sun doesn't shine. Natural gas is a national security risk due to imports, but they do have a lot of coal.
Out west coal drops a lot and green energy is more available. They are still limited by grid in getting green energy from west to east. They should probably be building more factories in the west, but I’m guessing water resources might limit that.
> They should probably be building more factories in the west, but I’m guessing water resources might limit that.
There are also other reasons. The name of western province is Xinjiang. They did have a plan to turn it into manufacturing hub, and it's one of the reasons why you see stuff you see.
I actually went to changji before, and visited my friend’s brother furniture factory, so they have manufacturing in Xinjiang. They have more potential for it than any other western province if we go by culture since Uighurs are just as industrious and educated as Han (economic competition is where a lot of the conflict stems from, if they could fix that the autonomous region would boom).