Chinese coal fired power plants cancelled by National Energy Administration
BEIJING, Oct 6 (Reuters) – China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) cancelled 15 coal fired power projects with a total capacity of 12.4 million kilowatts, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, part of the country’s stated campaign to curb coal use for power.
The NEA, the country’s energy watchdog, earlier this year ruled that provinces with surplus electricity supply shall “cancel, hold off approving and delay constructing” a certain amount of coal fired power plants, Xinhua said.
The 15 cancelled projects “did not meet the qualifying conditions,” according to Xinhua, without elaborating. The agency also did not specify the total number of provinces where the power plants were cancelled but did say it included Jilin, Shanxi, Shandong, Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Jiangxi provinces.
China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has pledged to bring its emissions to a peak by around 2030, as part of its commitments to a global climate change pact signed in Paris last year.
Environmental group Greenpeace estimated in March that the rules to control coal-fired power capacity, if fully implemented, could involve up to 250 power projects with a total of 170 gigawatts in capacity.
Coal fires more than 70 per cent of power generation in China, the world’s largest electricity market. Power consumption has in the past several years grown less rapidly in a cooling economy and the coal-fired power plant utilisation has declined.
(Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)