Coal power set for record fall in 2019: analysis
An analysis done by a UK-based reveals that coal-fired power, a main villain of climate change, is set to fall a record 3.0 percent this year, largely led by developed countries and China and India.
This “historic” drop would be equal to 300 Terawatt hours (TWh), or more than the combined coal-based electricity output of Germany, Spain and Britain last year, says the UK-based Carbon Brief.
The turnaround is largely due to “record falls in developed countries, including Germany, the EU overall and South Korea, which are not being matched by increases elsewhere.” “The largest reduction is taking place in the US, as several large coal-fired power plants close,” it added.
For 2017-2918, falls in the US and the European Union were “offset by increases elsewhere, particularly in China,” This year, however, the fall in developed economies is accelerating, while coal generation in India and China is slowing sharply, precipitating a global reduction,” said the Carbon Brief.
In the past 35 years, there have been only two overall coal power declines — 148 TWh in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis and 217 TWh in 2015 as China slowed. In China, coal tends to fill the gap between clean energy growth and rising demand. “This means that when electricity demand is growing strongly, coal dependence comes to the fore,” said Carbon Brief.
The study noted that Chinese firms have continued to add new coal-fired power plants at a rate of one large facility every two weeks, even as average plant utilisation rates tumble to record lows below 50 percent.
The result is that China “still dominates the global picture” in coal-fired electricity generation which “peaked unexpectedly” in 2014 when the world’s second largest economy began to cool off.
In the US, coal-fired power generation was down 13.9 percent through to August this year while in the first six months of 2019, European Union output tumbled 19 percent. For the full year, the EU could drop as much as 23 percent, Carbon Brief said.
The future of coal-fired electricity “has significant implications for global efforts to tackle climate change,” it noted.
Last year, a three percent increase in CO2 emissions from coal-fired power generation was responsible for half the global increase in emissions from fossil fuels.For 2019, a three percent reduction could imply zero growth in global CO2 output, if emissions changes in other sectors mirror those during 2018.
Meanwhile, a Global Energy Monitor report has found that India retired roughly 7.4 gigawatts (GW) and added 82.3 GW of coal power plants under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stint, while China retired 39.4 GW and added 290 GW worth of coal power plants. during the helm of President Xi Jingping.
The report said countries outside of China decreased their total coal power capacity by 8.1 GW, while China increased its coal fleet by 42.9 GW from January 2018 to June 2019.
The report, ‘Out of Step: China is driving the continued growth of the global coal fleet’, is based on plant-by-plant research. It finds that from 2018 through June 2019, countries outside of China decreased their total coal power capacity due to steady retirements and an ongoing decline in the commissioning of new coal plants. Over the same period, China increased its coal fleet by 42.9 GW, and as a result the global coal fleet overall grew by 34.9 GW.
These changes are significant but the study still noted that this year’s projected 3.0 percent fall would be only half the 6.0 percent drop the International Energy Agency says is necessary each year to 2040 to bring about its “Sustainable Development Scenario” aimed at limiting global warming to below 2C. The World Meterological Organization has said that greenhouse gas emissions hit a new all-time high in 2018.
