Hong Kong’s power plants facing 40 per cent emissions cut as city targets future built on natural gas
- Government proposes tightening of caps in electricity sector targeting three major pollutants
- Plan to be discussed by lawmakers at environmental affairs panel next week
Emission caps for Hong Kong’s power plants could be cut by as much as 40 per cent after 2024 when officials hope to generate more than half the city’s energy with natural gas to improve air quality.
The government has proposed to tighten caps in the electricity sector for three main sources of air pollutants – sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and respirable suspended particles (RSP).
The new targets would tighten emissions by 40 per cent, 29 per cent and 20 per cent (of SO2, NOx, RSP) respectively compared to allowances given for 2020, according to the eighth technical memorandum set between the city’s two power companies and the government.
This means annual emissions targets would be slashed to 3,150 tonnes of SO2, 12,430 tonnes of NOx and 391 tonnes of RSP after 2024.
The proposal, submitted to the Legislative Council on Wednesday, will be discussed by lawmakers during a panel on environmental affairs next Tuesday.
“The reduction will help improve air quality, given that emissions from the electricity sector account for 43 per cent, 27 per cent and 16 per cent [SO2, NOx, RSP] respectively of the territory-wide emissions of these pollutants in 2017,” the Environmental Protection Department said in the document.
Hong Kong Electric’s Lamma power station will have to make emission cuts between 3 and 34 per cent compared to the previous allowances set for 2020, while CLP’s three power stations will have to achieve reductions between 26 and 49 per cent.
The EPD said the proposed caps were possible as two new gas-fired units with better fuel efficiency and emission performance would come into operation in 2023, while five coal-fired units would be retired by then.
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It also took into account that projected electricity demand is forecast to drop by around 4 per cent in 2024 and 2025, compared to 2022 when they had set the previous technical memorandum.
By 2024, about 57 per cent of the city’s electricity will be obtained from natural gas, as compared to around half by 2020.
If approved, this will be the eighth time the caps have been tightened since 2010. Although the projected electricity demand from 2010 to 2022 has increased by 10 per cent, power plant emission allowances of the three pollutants have decreased by about 59 to 79 per cent compared to 2010.
The department however said it was premature at this stage to make any assessments on how the emission caps would affect electricity tariffs, because of a host of factors such as future fuel costs and operating costs.
Both companies agreed to the proposed emission caps, but considered them to be challenging. The two power suppliers said they saw the compliance of the emission allowances contingent upon having the supply of fuels of the right quality.
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Clean Air Network’s Patrick Fung Kin-wai said while the power sector’s emission caps had gradually tightened over the years, the reductions were not aggressive enough. The reductions for emissions from different sectors – from the power sector, to road transport and marine sector – are all bound by an overarching targets set by the government’s Air Quality Objectives (AQO).
The proposed new set of AQO, which is expected to come into effect around 2020, cover targets and concentration limits for seven air pollutants, which are benchmarked against World Health Organisation guidelines. “To put it into a broader perspective, since the AQO targets are not set at an aggressive enough level, that means reductions from individual sectors would only follow suit,” Fung said. “The issue should not just be looking at the power sector emission deductions, but rather the issue should be why the AQO can be set at such lax levels.”
