Analysts say coal-rich, gas-poor China needs carbon capture and energy storage tech for new power system

Smoke and steam rise from a coal processing plant in Hejin in central China's Shanxi Province, Nov. 28, 2019. A study blames pollution of all types for 9 million deaths a year globally, with the toll attributed to dirty air from cars, trucks and industry rising 55 percent since May 17, 2000. AP-Yonhap

Coal-rich and natural gas-poor China must place bigger bets on both carbon capture and energy storage technologies, as it navigates a decarbonization route that includes a huge renewable energy build-out while ensuring energy security, according to analysts.

Given the elevated gas prices sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the less carbon-intensive fuel will have limited room to grow and replace coal in power generation in China, the analysts said. Meanwhile, the country's huge fleet of coal power plants will need to be kept running for extended periods of time, albeit at increasingly lower utilization rates.

Due to the current small proportion and seasonality of renewable power, China will have to rely on coal power plants to ensure energy security for longer, said Lin Boqiang, director of the China Centre for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University.

"Coal power plants can be kept, while making room for wind and solar power by reducing their utilization rates. With the proportion of wind and solar power becoming larger, the utilization rates of coal power plants can be lowered," Lin said.

A farmer tending sheep near wind turbines at Caozhuangci village in Baoding in China's northern Hebei Province, is seen in this Oct. 23, 2021, photo. AFP-Yonhap

China, the world's largest greenhouse gases emitter and coal consumer, announced last year that it would build a new type of power system featuring a gradual increase in the contribution of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. The new system will help it reduce its reliance on coal and support the country's goal to meet carbon neutrality by 2060.

In its latest five-year development plan for renewable energy, which was released this month, China also said renewables should supply "50 per cent of the growth in power consumption" by 2025.

However, the country continues to lead the world in setting up coal power plants, driven especially by Beijing's determination to ensure power security following a crisis last year due to coal shortages. In April, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called for boosting coal production by 300 million tons this year, equal to 7 per cent of last year's output of 4.1 billion tons.

"New coal power plants would mean a negative shift in the carbon emissions trajectory of the power sector in upcoming years, or would require carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), whose prospects are still highly uncertain," said a report on China's power system development published last week by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Beijing-based Draworld Environment Research Centre.

China's continuing build-out of new coal power plants goes against the country's road map towards meeting climate targets and economic rationality, the report said.

The CREA report suggests that China's future energy mix should require a large proportion of renewable energy plus large-capacity, low-utilization natural gas power generation, as well as power sources that meet seasonal adjustment needs.

Workers are seen at the construction site of a natural gas pipeline as part of a China-Russia gas pipeline project in Heihe, Heilongjiang Province, China, Oct. 16, 2019. Reuters-Yonhap

Analysts, however, said that China lacked the infrastructure and availability of natural gas capacity in the short term, and has to rely on coal to ensure power security during its green power transition.

"In the next few years, there is almost zero chance that they can build up gas infrastructure and have more gas available for the power sector," said Lucas Zhang Liutong, director of Hong Kong-based consultancy WaterRock Energy Economics.

China is the world's largest natural gas importer due to its "rich in coal, poor in oil and short of gas" situation, and its total natural gas imports increased by 19.9 percent year-on-year in 2021, according to S&P Global.

Given the current high gas prices ― driven up by the conflict in Ukraine and limited gas availability in Asia ― developing gas-fired power capacity is not economical in the short term, and that is one of the main reasons why the central and provincial governments have relaxed their policies related to new coal capacity, Zhang said.

To ensure power security under the new system, China must develop more energy storage technologies to keep intermittent wind and solar power supply more stable. The other way is to use CCUS technologies at coal power plants to reduce carbon emissions on-site, said WaterRock's Zhang.

"China has also been pushing to incentivize investment of demand-response and energy-storage solutions. Both central and provincial governments have released several policies on those two in the past one or two years, but more needs to be done," he added. (SCMP)