As the Global Energy Monitor Net says, additions to the global coal-fired power plant capacity during the first half of 2024 reached 3.6 GW, with 15.6 GW of the coal-fired capacity added worldwide between January-June and 12 GW of the capacity retired.
More than 70% of the new capacity additions came from China and India, with a total of 11.5 GW of coal-fired capacity connected to the grid. New coal-fired capacity was also added in South Korea (1.1 GW), South Africa (800 MW), Vietnam (716 MW), Bangladesh (660 MW), Indonesia (380 MW), Zimbabwe (335 MW), the Philippines (150 MW) and Mongolia (50 MW).
Most of the decommissioned coal-fired power plants are in Germany (5.3 GW) and the United States (3.0 GW), while China (1.1 GW), Canada (880 MW), Japan (372 MW), Chile (277 MW), Slovakia (220 MW), India (220 MW), Morocco (165 MW), Poland (53 MW) and Finland (80 MW) also decommissioned their spent capacity.
In general, new capacity was mainly added in the East and South Asian countries, while most of the decommissioned coal-fired power plants are in Europe and North America.
A notable result of the year’s first half was the construction acceleration of the coal-fired power plant in China. The actual commissioning of the already built coal-fired thermal power plants in China during January-June 2024 reached 8.6 GW, but at the same time, construction of another 41.3 GW capacity started during the same period.
In addition, local companies have announced coal generation projects for another 31.8 GW. As a result, China would continue coal consumption increase in the power industry in the coming years.
This is partly due to almost 30% investment increase in coal mining in China between 2019-2023 (from US$78.4 billion to US$100 billion, according to the International Energy Agency).
An important trend is change in the structure of the coal-fired power plant fleet, which should ultimately reduce the environmental impact. We mean the spread of ultra-supercritical technologies that allow conversion of thermal energy into electricity with the efficiency of 44% to 46%, which is higher than the efficiency of super- and sub-critical coal-fired thermal power plants (37-40% and 33-37%, respectively).
For example, in China the share of ultra-supercritical power plants in the capacity structure of the operating coal-fired thermal power plants reached 32% by July 2024, while among the plants under construction, it was 95%; as for all the other countries throughout the world, these figures were 10% and 23%, respectively. Further growth in the share of ultra-supercritical thermal power plants would ensure coal savings in power generation.
