China has increased its output from coal-based electricity plants over the last 18 months to power an additional 31 million homes even as the rest of the world is cutting down on the usage of coal as a source of electricity, claimed a study.

The study also claimed that a process of building or reviving coal powered electricity has been started by China which is equivalent to the entire electricity generating capacity of the European Union.

About a quarter of all proposed coal plants outside its borders is also being financed by China.

According to researchers, this policy change of China is a huge threat to achieving the stated targets of the Paris climate accord.

One of the key drivers of the development of the Chinese economy was the development of coal as a source of power and its “one coal plant a week” building programme that it implemented between 2006 and 2015 attained global fame and criticism.

However that reliance on coal also presented a number of negative consequences. It resulted in high very high levels of air pollution in many Chinese cities and created huge overcapacity of the power plants. There are many coal powered plants that are able to run for only about 50 per cent of their capacity.

The national government tried to clamp down on new-build coal in an attempt to curb the growth in 2015. But the [provincial governments were allowed to issue permits for the construction of new coal powered electricity generating plants. That was a bad move that misfired. It resulted in local authorities giving permits to coal plants to up five times more than in any other comparable period.

It was like a “snake swallowing a goat”, said Ted Nace, from coal researchers Global Energy Monitor. “This goat that the snake swallowed is still moving through the snake, and it’s coming out in the form of another 20% in the Chinese coal fleet on top of a fleet that was already over-built,” Nace added.

Countries outside of China reduced their coal power capacity by 8.1 gigawatts (GW) between 2018 and up to June 2019, the researchers said. But at the same time period, 43GW of coal power was added by china which is enough to provide power to about 31 million homes.

Currently about 147.7GW of coal power under construction or under suspension and likely to be revived is present in China, said the report. That amount of power generating capacity is almost the same as that of entire coal generating capacity of the European Union which is at 150GW.

About 50 per cent more coal plants are being built by China compared to those that are under construction in all other countries combined when the figures for the rest of the world are compared, the report said. By 2020, it is expected that China will have more than 1,100GW of coal powered electricity generation capacity.

(Adapted from BBC.com)

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