China Stops 85 Coal Power Projects As Part Of Five Year Plan

China, in order to meet its stated Five Year Plan coal capacity goal, has stopped the development of 85 coal power projects across 13 different provinces. The news was recently announced by China's National Energy Board's Electricity Division, which says the projects would have totaled more than 100 million kilowatts of power. The notice says these projects were "ceased or postponed," making it unclear whether any will be resumed in the future.

The issue revolves around coal overcapacity in China, with far too many coal power plant projects being approved. To curb this, China previously told 15 provinces to stop its coal projects — including ones that had already been approved — and to prevent any new coal projects until 2019.

At the same time, China is implementing a system that will prevent these excess coal projects from being initiated, but it is a long process. This new announcement is stopping additional provinces from continuing or starting coal power projects of their own, and it is likely we'll see similar orders in the future.

The approval process, meanwhile, will assign provinces a color — green, orange, or red — with green indicating a province where projects are okay, while red is the opposite, that no projects will be allowed. It isn't clear how far the nation has progressed into its policy efforts.

SOURCE: Greenpeace