Liberalising China’s electricity market will help coal power giant Datang transition to clean energy, chairman says
- Electricity market reform will allow Datang International’s coal plants to wind down output and increase renewable energy production, chairman Liang Yongpan says
- Datang’s carbon dioxide emissions fell 4.4 per cent to 192 million tonnes last year, after declining 13.9 per cent in 2021
Market reform will allow Datang’s coal plants to wind down output and increase renewable energy production, thereby enabling the company to charge higher prices for its coal power and make the transition viable, said chairman Liang Yongpan. It will also allow the company to earn more revenue from the sale of carbon credits, he added.
“For a coal power generator like Datang International, the biggest challenge and opportunity lie in clean energy transition,” he told a briefing on Monday. “The proliferation of market-based pricing is a matter of when, not if. We will see more interprovincial power sales and spot trading at favourable prices at times of peak demand.”
The listed flagship of China Datang Group, one of the nation’s five state-owned power generation groups, operates the world’s largest coal plant in Tuoketuo, Inner Mongolia, with an installed capacity of 6.7 gigawatts.
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Last year, it was granted approval to build 1.3GW of wind farms and 0.7GW of solar farms in the autonomous region in northern China, Liang said.
Although Datang International was burdened with coal power assets that will be phased out in the coming decades, Liang said it was well-positioned to replace them with solar and wind farms given Tuoketuo’s proximity to power grids designed to dispatch renewable energy to consumption centres. Grid access is a key barrier for new renewable projects.