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Energy conservation in China’s coal-fired power industry by installing advanced units and organized phasing out backward production

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Abstract

Coal-fired power is the main power source and the biggest contributor to energy conservation in the past several decades in China. It is generally believed that advanced technology should be counted on for energy conservation. However, a review of the decline in the national average net coal consumption rate (NCCR) of China’s coal-fired power industry along with its development over the past few decades indicates that the upgradation of the national unit capacity structure (including installing advanced production and phasing out backward production) plays a more important role. A quantitative study on the effect of the unit capacity structure upgradation on the decline in the national average NCCR suggests that phasing out backward production is the leading factor for the decline in the NCCR in the past decade, followed by the new installation, whose sum contributes to approximately 80% of the decline in the national average NCCR. The new installation has an effective affecting period of about 8 years, during which it would gradually decline from a relatively high value. Since the effect of phasing out backward production may remain at a certain degree given a continual action of phasing out backward capacity, it is suggested that the organized action of phasing out backward production should be insisted on.

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Abbreviations

AUH:

Annual utilization hours

A-USC:

Advanced-ultra super critical power generation technology

CHP:

Combined heat and power

DC:

Direct current

FLMB:

Full-load main-steam bypass

GROIC:

Growth rate of installed capacity/%

HR:

Heat rate/(kJ·kWh−1)

IC:

Installed capacity/GW

LHV:

Low heat value

N :

Nominal unit capacity/MW

NCCR:

Net coal consumption rate/(g·kWh−1)

P :

Pressure/MPa

PRC:

The People’s Republic of China

SPCR:

Service power consumption rate/%

T:

Temperature/°C

TRT:

Top gas recovery turbine units

Δ:

The variation

η :

Efficiency/%

ave:

National average value

b:

Boiler

dr:

Double reheat steam

n:

Main steam

new:

National new installed value

out:

Phased out units

r:

Reheat steam

tot:

National total value

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No.2017M620758), Special Funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. L1522032), and the Consulting Project of Chinese Academy of Engineering (No. 2015-ZCQ-06).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Weiliang Wang, Junfu Lyu, Zheng Li, Hai Zhang, Guangxi Yue & Weidou Ni

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  1. Weiliang Wang
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  2. Junfu Lyu
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Correspondence to Weiliang Wang.

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Wang, W., Lyu, J., Li, Z. et al. Energy conservation in China’s coal-fired power industry by installing advanced units and organized phasing out backward production. Front. Energy 13, 798–807 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-019-0633-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-019-0633-z

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