China remains the global leader in terms of coal-fired power generation development, as it brought 17 GW of coal-fired TPPs on stream in the period from January through June 2023 (against 27.2 GW for the entire last year). The top five in terms of new coal-fired generating capacities is rounded out by Japan (1.8 GW), Pakistan (1.3 GW) and Vietnam (1.2 GW) in third, fourth and fifth places, respectively. New coal-fired TPPs were also launched in Greece, which connected 660 megawatts (MW) of capacities to the grid, as well as in Indonesia (530 MW) and Zimbabwe (335 MW).
The first half of 2023 confirmed the growing popularity of clean coal technologies. This refers to the so-called ultra-supercritical TPPs equipped with steam boilers, in which the pressure does not exceed 320 bar and the temperature stands at 600–610 degrees Celsius. These conditions are conducive to a relatively high efficiency of converting thermal energy into electricity, which reaches 43.3% for supercritical coal-fired TPPs (as estimated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). This indicator is higher than the efficiency of subcritical coal-fired TPPs (34.3%) using steam boilers, in which the pressure is maintained at 221 bar and the temperature at 550 degrees Celsius. Also lower is the efficiency of supercritical coal-fired TPPs (38.5%), in the boilers of which the pressure does not exceed 243 bar and the temperature stands at 565 degrees Celsius.
The higher the efficiency, the less coal is required to produce a certain amount of electricity and the lower the emissions are. This is why ultra-supercritical coal-fired TPPs are becoming increasingly popular. According to Global Energy Monitor, these TPPs accounted for 21% of the capacity of coal-fired power plants operating worldwide by July 2023, as well as for 66% in the segment of facilities under construction and for 79% of the planned projects that have not yet been implemented.
The first half of 2023 also confirmed the trend towards the phasing out of coal in a number of OECD countries. In the period from January through June 2023, a total of 10.3 GW of coal-fired TPPs were disconnected from the grid worldwide, among them 5 GW in the United States and 4 GW in Australia and the UK, although this figure came down to a mere 1.3 GW for all other countries, including China.
