Even with Massive Cuts, China on Path to Add 200 Gigawatts of Coal-Fired Power by 2020

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--In 2016, the installed capacity of newly commissioned power plants in China reached 120.61 Gigawatts (GW). This included 48.36 GW of thermal power. At the end of 2015, China's total installed capacity of coal-fired power was about 900 GW.

Due to the economic slowdown in China, the nation's overall power consumption growth slowed to 5% in 2016. This, coupled with environmental protection initiatives and the rise of renewable energy, has led to a decline in the average utilization of thermal power units to 4,165 hours, a year over year drop of 199 hours. Even while utilization rates for coal-fired units are low and declining, total installed capacity of coal-fired units is increasing and will continue to increase at least through 2020.

In order to limit China's total installed capacity of coal-fired power to 1,100 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2020, the country's National Energy Administration has proposed to limit newly commissioned coal-fired power scheduled to come online during the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (2016-2020). Even with these massive cuts in coal plant development, China is scheduled to bring online about 40 GW per year of coal projects through 2020. According to the proposal, construction will be postponed for 85 coal-fired power projects in 13 provinces, with a total installed capacity of 102.45 GW. These projects will be reviewed during the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan (2021-2025).

Postponed projects include:

• six approved projects with total installed capacity of 7.36 GW in Gansu province
• six planned projects with total capacity of 9.4 GW, as well as three approved coal and power integrated projects with total capacity of 2.42 GW and seven approved trans-regional transmission projects with total capacity of 8.62 GW in Inner Mongolia
• three approved coal power projects with total capacity of 3.02 GW in Guangxi
• two planned projects with total capacity of 3.2 GW and seven approved projects with total capacity of 9.02 GW in Guangdong
• five approved projects with total capacity of 5.5 GW in Henan
• 9.36 GW of projects in Ningxia, including five approved independent coal power projects with total capacity of 5.36 GW and 4 GW of coal-fired power projects attached to the Ningdong Coal Power Base
• four approved projects with total capacity of 3.38 GW in Qinghai
• two planned projects with total capacity of 3.32 GW and eight approved projects with total capacity of 9.22 GW in Shandong
• four planned projects with total capacity of 4.66 GW and 10 approved projects with total capacity of 10.66 GW in Shanxi
• a total of 10.64 GW of projects in Shaanxi, including four approved independent coal-fired power projects with total capacity of 5.34 GW, 2.64 GW coal power projects attached to the Shenmu-Henan Transmission Project and 2.66 GW of coal-fired power projects attached to the Yuheng-Shandong Transmission Project
• a total of 8.94 GW of projects in Xinjiang, including seven planned projects with total capacity of 4.9 GW and four approved coal-fired power projects with total capacity of 4.04 GW
• one approved project with total capacity of 0.35 GW in Liaoning
• one planned project with total capacity of 2 GW in Sichuan
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These projects will be postponed to the 14th Five-Year Plan. In addition, seven approved projects with total capacity of 13.2 GW attached to the transregional transmission projects to be commissioned by 2020 in Xinjiang will be reduced to 6.6 GW. Five approved projects with total capacity of 3.46 GW in Shanxi will be cancelled.

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