China's coal power plants hurt climate

Photo: GreenpeaceTop ten power companies that provide almost 60 per cent of China’s total electricity have emitted 1.44 billion tonnes of CO2 last year, says a report by Greenpeace.

These companies' heavy reliance on coal is hindering the country’s efforts to tackle climate change. says the report, Polluting Power: Ranking China’s Biggest Power Companies. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal. More than 70 per cent of country’ energy needs come from coal with the Chinese electricity sector being the biggest consumer.

The country is the world’s second largest producer and consumer of electricity, with a total generation of 3,433.4TWh in 2008, smaller only than the US. In 2008, the largest three companies (Huaneng, Datang and Guodian) together emitted more than the UK’s total emissions in the same year.

In the past three and a half years, 54.07 gigawatt of the least efficient coal-fired plants were closed down, which is more than the total installed electricity capacity of Australia.

Although China has built a number of coal plants using the most efficient coal technology available, many of China’s power stations are still burning coal with inefficient, outdated technologies, leading to the high carbon dioxide intensity of the Chinese electricity sector.

Greenpeace has urged the Chinese power companies to phase out all inefficient coal-fired plants under 100 megawatt by 2012. By doing so, China could reduce coal consumption by 90 million tonnes and avoid 220 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

"Climate change is humankind’s most urgent environmental problem. China’s power companies are not only the key coal consumer but also the major CO2 emitter. All parts of Chinese society must play a role in moving China away from intensive coal dependence and these major polluters must not be exempt from this responsibility,” said Greenpeace climate campaign manager Yang Ailun.

Yang said, “China is suffering the pains of extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves, typhoons and floods, worsened by climate change. These power companies can and must help China to prevent climate disaster by rapidly increasing efficiency and the share of renewable energy such as wind and solar.”

Renewable energy

Adding to the carbon footprint is the country's less share of renewable energy. In order to improve the electricity sector’s carbon footprint, China has to continue to increase efficiency through upgrading technologies and developing renewable energy.

According to China’s Renewable Energy Mid- and Long-Term Development Plan, by 2010, large power companies, including the top ten listed in this report, are obliged to have at least 3 per cent of their installed capacity from non-hydro renewable sources. By the end of 2008, eight out of the ten were not even half way to meeting this modest target, the report noted.

“Yet, China has a huge potential to become the world leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies,” Yang said.

China is now the fourth largest wind market in the world. In 2008, the country also doubled its installed capacity of wind power for the fourth year running. By the end of 2008, China’s total installed wind capacity was 12.15 GW.

Courtesy: Greenpeace

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The report urges the Chinese government to introduce a price signal for coal that not only effectively drives power companies to rapidly move to renewable energy, but also ensures that, during the transition, coal is used as efficiently as possible. China must also double its national renewable energy target to 30 per cent by 2020 and introduce favourable policies to facilitate its rapid development.

The report also stresses the need for the power companies to accelerate the shut-down of the least efficient coal power stations so that, by 2012, all of the inefficient power plants under 100 MW and, by 2015, all of the inefficient power plants under 200MW are either shut-down or converted to more efficient technologies.

“In order to achieve these targets, the electricity sector, especially the large power companies, must play their crucial role. The challenges China is facing in the lead up to the UN Climate Meeting in Copenhagen this December will be even larger without serious actions to cut emissions by these companies,” Yang concluded.