Increasing coal-fired power generation efficiency to reduce electric cost and environmental emissions

A substantial fraction of the new electric power generation expected to be built in China and other developing countries over the coming decades will be coal-fired. Almost all of the plants being built today and planned for the coming decade are using subcritical pulverised coal technology, with generating efficiency below 40%. Up-to-date engineering assessment leads to the conclusion that supercritical generating technology, capable of efficiencies of up to 45%, can produce electricity at a lower total cost than conventional plants. If such plants were built in Asia over the coming decades, this would result in lower emissions of pollutants like sulphur and nitrogen oxides, and the savings in carbon dioxide emissions over their lifetime would be measured in billions of tens. Electric utilities and independent power producers (IPPs) developing power projects tend to perceive supercritical technology as riskier and higher cost than conventional technology. The truth needs to be confirmed by discussions with additional experienced power engineering companies. Better communication among the interested parties could help to overcome the perception issue. Governments working together with industry might be able to identify creative financing arrangements which can encourage the use of more efficient pulverised clean coal technologies, while awaiting the commercialisation of advanced clean-coal technologies like gasification combined cycle and pressurised fluidised bed combustion.