Last year, the proportion of coal-fired power generation in China rebounded

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"In 2023, the central power generation enterprises strengthened the management of thermal coal inventory, and the thermal coal inventory was always at a high level. The coal-fired generating units maintained safe and efficient operation, generating a total of 5.35 trillion kWh of electricity throughout the year, accounting for 52% of the national installed capacity and contributing 63% of the national power generation."

On January 24th, Li Bing, Deputy Secretary-General of SASAC, Director of Financial Supervision and Operation Evaluation Bureau and spokesperson, said at the press conference of the State Council Press Office.

This means that the proportion of coal-fired power generation in China has stopped the downward trend in recent years and returned to the level of 2019. From 2019 to 2022, the proportion was about 63%, 60.8%, 60% and 58.4% respectively.

The direct reason for the rebound in the proportion of coal-fired power generation is the increase in installed capacity and utilization hours of coal-fired power.

On January 30th, 2023-2024 National Power Supply and Demand Situation Analysis and Forecast Report issued by China Electric Power Enterprise Federation (hereinafter referred to as China Electricity Council) showed that by the end of 2023, the installed capacity of coal-fired power generation was 1.16 billion kilowatts, up 3.4% year-on-year, accounting for 39.9% of the total installed capacity.

Due to the drought in southwest China and the shortage of incoming water, the hydropower generation in power plants above designated size in China decreased by 5.6% in 2023. In the same period, the power generation of thermal power and nuclear power in power plants above designated size increased by 6.1% and 3.7% respectively.

According to the data of China Electricity Council, coal-fired power generation accounts for nearly 60% of the total power generation in 2023. "Coal-fired power is still the main power supply in China at present, effectively making up for the decline in hydropower output." China Electricity Council said.

In 2023, the utilization hours of power generation equipment in power plants of 6000 kilowatts and above nationwide were 3592 hours, down 101 hours year-on-year. Among them, hydropower was 3,133 hours, a year-on-year decrease of 285 hours; Thermal power was 4,466 hours, up 76 hours year-on-year.

In the past three years, the speed of coal-fired power approval in China has been accelerated.

In 2021-2022, the coal price in China rose sharply, and power cuts occurred in some areas, so ensuring supply became an important task for the coal industry. After that, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments carried out various controls to optimize coal production and promote the approval and construction of advanced coal production capacity in an orderly manner.

According to Global Energy Monitor, a global energy monitoring organization, the amount of coal-fired power approved in China in 2022 is four times higher than that in 2021, reaching more than 106 million kilowatts, which is equivalent to approving two coal-fired power projects every week.

In 2023, China coal-fired power continued to be launched. Greenpeace’s Analysis on the Progress of Low-carbon Transformation in China Power Sector in the First Half of 2023 shows that in the first half of 2023, the total approved installed capacity of coal-fired power in China was 50.4 million kilowatts, accounting for 55.56% of the approved installed capacity in 2022, far exceeding the total approved capacity in 2021.

Last year, the installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic in China increased significantly, but the contribution to the proportion of power generation was still limited.

According to the data of the National Energy Administration, by the end of 2023, the cumulative installed capacity of solar power generation was about 610 million kilowatts, up 55.2% year-on-year; The installed capacity of wind power was 440 million kilowatts, up 20.7% year-on-year.

Based on this calculation, the installed capacity of wind and light in China will be 1.05 billion kilowatts in 2023, which is about 38.2% higher than that in 2022, exceeding the predicted value of 1 billion kilowatts by China Electric Power Enterprise Association (hereinafter referred to as China Electricity Council) and accounting for nearly 36% of the total installed capacity.

Scenery has become the main source of the overall power installed growth in China. According to the data of the National Energy Administration, from January to November last year, the newly installed capacity of solar energy and wind energy was 205 million kilowatts, accounting for 72.5% of the newly installed capacity in China.

Although the installed capacity is gratifying, the wind power generation has not increased at the same rate. The National Energy Administration has not released the specific data of scenery power generation last year. In the first three quarters of last year, renewable energy accounted for about 49.6% of the total installed capacity, but the power generation accounted for only 31.1%.

Renewable energy includes non-fossil energy such as wind energy, solar energy, hydro energy, biomass energy, geothermal energy and ocean energy. Installed capacity refers to the sum of the rated effective power of the actually installed generator set, which is the theoretical upper limit of power generation; Power generation refers to the amount of electric energy generated by generator through energy conversion.

At the capacity market discussion seminar held by Greenpeace on January 25th, Yin Ming, director of China Power Project of Agora Energy Transformation Forum, pointed out that wind power generation is a kind of contractible power source with high installed capacity and low power consumption. Contraction power supply refers to those power supplies that have greater influence on the installed structure of power supply than on the generated structure, that is, high installed capacity and low generated capacity.

The conversion coefficient of installed power is the ratio of installed power generation to power generation. The larger the coefficient is, the smaller the influence of the change of installed power supply ratio on the change of power generation ratio is. As a contractible power source, the conversion coefficient of wind-solar power generation is greater than 1.

At the same time, Yin Ming said that in recent years, the conversion coefficient of installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic has shown a downward trend, indicating that the influence of the change of installed structure of wind power generation on the change of power structure has shown a strengthening trend.

Alva Wang, a invited researcher at the 50-person Forum on Carbon Neutralization in China, pointed out at the meeting that the increase of new energy installed capacity has brought about an increase in power generation, but it has not brought about an increase in the effective capacity of the power system.

Capacity value refers to the power generation capacity that can be called by power supply to ensure the power supply adequacy of power system. Due to the low output of new energy guarantee, it can’t provide effective capacity, so it can only be replaced by electricity.

"If the electricity load increases, new energy can only provide electricity, and it still needs the corresponding installed support of traditional energy sources such as hydropower or coal power." Alva Wang said.

From the utilization hours, the utilization hours of scenery are lower than the average utilization hours of power generation equipment in power plants of 6000 kW and above in China.

Last year, the average utilization of power generation equipment in power plants with 6000 kilowatts and above nationwide was 3592 hours. Among them, the utilization hours of domestic grid-connected wind power are 2225 hours, up by 7 hours year-on-year; Grid-connected solar power generation was 1286 hours, a year-on-year decrease of 54 hours.