Phasing out coal combustion is urgently needed to protect the climate, but around 476 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants were planned or under construction worldwide as recently as mid-2022. Experts have now checked how many of these projects will continue. The result: around half of the coal-fired power projects are expected to be abandoned or cancelled. Nevertheless, around 170 to 270 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants could go online in the next few years - not good news for the climate.
At the 2021 World Summit in Glasgow, the contracting states agreed to push ahead with the decarbonization of their energy systems. According to studies, in order to achieve the climate protection goals, the number of coal-fired power plants would have to be reduced by 40 percent by 2040 compared to 2020, and the coal phase-out should be complete by 2050. However, the reality is different: as late as mid-2022, 476 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants were under construction or planned worldwide, around 90 percent of them in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Pakistan, Turkey, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
What about implementation?
If all of these coal-fired power projects were implemented, the global climate protection goals of limiting warming to 1.5 or two degrees would be unattainable. But is that the case? "Planning and even ongoing construction projects can be put on hold if, for example, the financing environment, national energy strategies or the costs of renewable energies change," explains Jan Steckel from the Brandenburg Technical University. "For the negotiations on the global phase-out of coal, it is therefore important to know what realistically there is still a threat of growth in the power plants." Together with colleagues, he therefore examined the current status of global coal-fired power projects.
For their study, the scientists first looked for experts in the ten countries that are responsible for 90 percent of the planned growth. "Such a method is particularly useful when there is a lack of hard data or when complex dynamics are involved," explains the team. They identified 29 professionals doing research in energy and coal-fired research institutions who have insight into what's happening around coal-fired projects in their country. By questioning these experts, Steckel and his colleagues then determined how the power plant projects were being implemented and were thus able to gain an overview of how much capacity will actually be connected to the grid by 2050.
Around half of the power plant projects are implemented
The result: "Most of the expansion plans are still acute and the experts predict that many of these plans will also be implemented," report Steckel and his colleagues. Specifically, the analyzes showed that around half of all planned and announced construction projects are still acute and will in all likelihood be implemented. "In absolute numbers, between 170 and 270 gigawatts of new coal-fired power plants will be added," say the researchers. This means that around 50 percent of the power plant projects are ongoing and will probably be implemented.
China has the largest share of the additional coal-fired power plants. According to the forecasts, only around half of the previously planned construction projects will be realized there, but this alone accounts for 132 gigawatts of coal-fired electricity. In India, it is expected that 72 percent of all projects will be carried out as planned, these power plants together correspond to around 40 gigawatts. The implementation rate is similarly high in Indonesia, where 22.6 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants will be added. Taken together, the forecast growth in new coal-fired power plants does not bode well for the climate: "If all coal-fired power plants run for the commonly estimated service life of around 37 years, then a total of 1707 gigawatts of coal power will be on the grid by 2030 and 742 gigawatts by 2050," write Steckel and his colleagues. A complete phase-out of coal by 2050 will not work like this.
What can you do?
"Our study shows how important international support is to phase out coal and expand alternatives," says lead author Lorenzo Montrone from the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Berlin. However, along with Vietnam and South Africa, Indonesia is one of the countries that have received or are to receive billions in grants as part of the climate partnerships to make it easier for them to phase out coal-fired power generation, which is particularly harmful to the climate. Nevertheless, as things stand at present, the country is continuing almost all of its power plant projects. “One way of dealing with the newly built plants would be to limit their lifespan to 15 years. If that succeeds, the 1.5-degree target will certainly still be within reach,” says Steckel.
Source: Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC); Specialist article: Environmental Research Letters, doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/accdf0