China Shuts Down 14,380 Megawatts of Small Thermal Power Units in 2007

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--China's plans for energy conservation and emissions reduction in the electric power sector have been going smoothly. As of December 27, 2007, 553 small thermal power units with a total installed capacity of 14,380 megawatts (MW) were shut down in 2007, 43% over the target of 10,000 MW set by the Chinese government at the beginning of the year, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced.

The average single-unit capacity of these units was 26 MW of which 256 units with a total installed capacity of 10,520 MW were owned by the top 5 nationwide power producers, local investment companies and state-owned local enterprises, accounting for 73.1% of the total. Private and other enterprises owned 297 units with a total installed capacity of 3,860 MW, accounting for 26.9% of the total. Provinces, such as Shandong (1,717 MW), Henan (1,543 MW), Guangdong (1,294 MW), Jiangsu (1,139 MW) and Shanxi (1,007 MW), ranked in the top 5 in shutdowns. The units that were shut down were replaced by large units, which could reduce 18.8 million metric tons of coal consumption and reduce the emissions of 290,000 metric tons of SO2 and 37.6 million metric tons of CO2 every year.

In the beginning of 2007, the State Council issued policies regarding the acceleration of small-unit shutdowns, which specified that large units can be built to replace lost capacity with small-unit shutdowns. The policies state that small units that are shut down could receive compensation equal to three years of output. The implementation of energy conservation dispatching, namely to determine the output of each unit based on consumption of fossil fuel, also greatly promoted the shutdown of small thermal power units.

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