Energy

China’s coal-fired power industry running out of water

Top five power companies face financial and capacity difficulties as they try to expand coal-fired generation in water scarce regions, warns new report
English

China is facing some tough decisions as the water-energy crunch grows more severe and serious questions emerge over its ability to keep new coal-fired power stations running in some of the country’s most important regions.  

A new report from Bloomberg points out that China’s top five power companies could find themselves facing financial and capacity difficulties as they try to expand coal-fired generation in China’s dry regions and the government plans to cap total water consumption.  

China’s energy needs, and its generation capacity, tend to be concentrated in the dry northeast of  the country. The northeast is trying to operate 60% of China’s thermal power capacity in a region that has only 20% of China’s water.  

The report says the coal industry already consumes around 15% of China’s scarce water supplies, although other studies have put this as high as 20% and the government plans to cap national water withdrawal at 700 billion cubic metres per annum by 2030. Whichever is the true figure, the competition for scarce water between the power sector, industry, agriculture and domestic use is set to become fiercer. Aquifers in North China are already severely depleted by unsustainable withdrawals.  

If the power sector is to continue to expand, it will have to make heavy investments in increased efficiency and new technologies. The water energy crunch could also give a boost to renewables such as wind and solar and is likely to strengthen the case for renewed investment in the controversial areas of hydropower and nuclear power. 

-->
Cookies Settings

Dialogue Earth uses cookies to provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser. It allows us to recognise you when you return to Dialogue Earth and helps us to understand which sections of the website you find useful.

Required Cookies

Required Cookies should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

Dialogue Earth - Dialogue Earth is an independent organisation dedicated to promoting a common understanding of the world's urgent environmental challenges. Read our privacy policy.

Cloudflare - Cloudflare is a service used for the purposes of increasing the security and performance of web sites and services. Read Cloudflare's privacy policy and terms of service.

Functional Cookies

Dialogue Earth uses several functional cookies to collect anonymous information such as the number of site visitors and the most popular pages. Keeping these cookies enabled helps us to improve our website.

Google Analytics - The Google Analytics cookies are used to gather anonymous information about how you use our websites. We use this information to improve our sites and report on the reach of our content. Read Google's privacy policy and terms of service.

Advertising Cookies

This website uses the following additional cookies:

Google Inc. - Google operates Google Ads, Display & Video 360, and Google Ad Manager. These services allow advertisers to plan, execute and analyze marketing programs with greater ease and efficiency, while enabling publishers to maximize their returns from online advertising. Note that you may see cookies placed by Google for advertising, including the opt out cookie, under the Google.com or DoubleClick.net domains.

Twitter - Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest stories, ideas, opinions and news about what you find interesting. Simply find the accounts you find compelling and follow the conversations.

Facebook Inc. - Facebook is an online social networking service. China Dialogue aims to help guide our readers to content that they are interested in, so they can continue to read more of what they enjoy. If you are a social media user, then we are able to do this through a pixel provided by Facebook, which allows Facebook to place cookies on your web browser. For example, when a Facebook user returns to Facebook from our site, Facebook can identify them as part of a group of China Dialogue readers, and deliver them marketing messages from us, i.e. more of our content on biodiversity. Data that can be obtained through this is limited to the URL of the pages that have been visited and the limited information a browser might pass on, such as its IP address. In addition to the cookie controls that we mentioned above, if you are a Facebook user you can opt out by following this link.

Linkedin - LinkedIn is a business- and employment-oriented social networking service that operates via websites and mobile apps.