China closing down small coal-fired plants

China this week moved to challenge the widely held perception that its energy policy is focused on opening new coal-fired power stations, announcing that it has shut many of its smaller and inefficient coal-burning plants nearly two years ahead of schedule.

Facilities with a total generating capacity of 54GW have been shut from 2006 to June this year, Sun Qin, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, said yesterday.

The closures put China 18 months ahead in its schedule to shut 50GW of coal-fuelled generating capacity by the end of 2010, he noted.

The closures, equal to about seven per cent of China's current power-generating capacity, resulted in a drop in coal use of about 160 million tonnes since January 2006. Annual carbon dioxide emissions are down by 124 million tonnes, while sulphur dioxide output has been reduced by one million tonnes per year.

The announcement follows the release of a Greenpeace report earlier this week that called for China to phase out outdated facilities with a generating capacity of less than 100MW and set a renewable energy target of 30 per cent by 2020.

Sun said the number of plants with a capacity below 100MW comprised 14 per cent of the total proportion of energy-generating units, down from 30 per cent in early 2006. Environmental officials will meet next month to make plans for more plant closures, he added.

However, in the meantime new coal-burning plants are still being built at a rate of 70GW per year, although Sun said most of the new facilities have significantly higher levels of energy efficiency than those they replace.

China is the world's largest coal producer and consumer. The fossil fuel accounts for at least 70 per cent of its energy needs – a factor that has led to its top ranking in global greenhouse gas emissions.