China provinces plan to add 100 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity

China’s provinces are still planning to launch more than 100 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity despite a decline in new approvals in the first half of 2021, environmental group Greenpeace said on Wednesday.

Local planning agencies approved 24 new coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 5.2 GW in the first six months of 2021, Greenpeace said.

The figure is down nearly 80% from a year earlier, when new projects surged to help China’s post-lockdown recovery, but it puts total planned capacity on China’s provincial project lists at 104.8 GW, it said – enough to power the whole of the United Kingdom.

Earlier this month, a U.N. climate panel said global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control and urged immediate, rapid and large-scale action to reduce emissions.

[David Stanway]

25 August 2021

IEEFA