Coal news and updates

Report Says China, India Account for Nearly All New Coal-Fired Generation

Research from a group that tracks fossil fuel and other energy projects shows that just 15 countries, led by China and India, account for 98% of coal-fired power plants under development worldwide.

Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a San Francisco, California-based non-governmental organization, in its latest Global Coal Plant Tracker (GCPT) said China and India alone account for 86% of that total. An article posted September 3 on the Carbon Brief website, written by the GCPT research team at GEM, provided context for the report, and said the number of countries with coal-fired power in either pre-construction or construction phases has dropped to 40 this year, down from 75 countries developing projects in 2014. Carbon Brief is a UK-based website that specializes “in the science and policy of climate change.”

GEM’s GCPT catalogs coal-fired power units with 30 MW or more of generation capacity. The biannual report was first published in 2014.

The report said that despite a move away from coal-fired power in many countries, the number of new proposed coal-fueled units is outpacing the number of projects being canceled, along with the amount of generation being retired. GEM’s research showed that more than 60 GW of new coal-fired generation capacity was either proposed in revived in the first half of this year, “compared to 33.7 GW that was shelved or canceled over the same period.”

GEM on Tuesday wrote that the latest GCPT looks at “some of the most significant trends driving the continued development of coal across the 15 largest markets, drawing insight from the GCPT, as well as wider context.” The countries include China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, along with Vietnam, Laos, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, South Africa, Pakistan, the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia.

Recent Resurgence in Coal Power

The report said a resurgence in coal-fired generation began in China in 2022, with India showing an uptick in 2024. “In fact, as shown in the figure below, almost all [97%] of the new and newly revived proposals in the first half of 2024 are located in China and India.” The researchers also noted that “of the 1.8 GW of newly proposed capacity in the rest of the world, more than 40% is sponsored by Chinese companies.”

GEM said that as of June of this year, China had “1,147 GW of operational coal capacity spread across nearly 3,200 units, representing more than half [54%] of the world’s total operating coal capacity.” The GCPT said China approved more than 100 GW of new coal-fired capacity in both 2022 and 2023, but “The country drastically reduced approvals for new coal power in the first half of 2024, granting permission to only 12 projects totaling 9.1 GW.”