China leads the world in the installed capacity of coal power, which is the largest carbon source and the key to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals of China and the climate goals of world. Firstly, the development history of coal power in China is reviewed, indicating that coal power has the characteristics of large capacity, clean, low carbon and overcapacity. Also, the main constraints on the development of coal power in China are analyzed, indicating that the phase out of coal power has a certain complexity which is related to development and has a serious impact on social stability, economic development and energy security. In addition, the policies for the development of coal power are sorted out, indicating that China will strictly control coal power and promote the transformation of coal power to both basic security and system regulation power. Furthermore, the technologies and challenges of coal power are summarized. The technologies of coal power are divided into energy-saving technologies, emission reduction technologies and flexibility technologies, among which the energy-saving technologies are divided into high efficiency technologies and efficiency improvement technologies, the emission reduction technologies include coal and low-carbon fuel blending, coal and new energy coupling power generation and CCUS, and the flexible technologies include flexible peaking technology on the combustion side of the unit, thermoelectric decoupling technology of cogeneration unit, energy storage and variable load rate peaking technology on the power generation side. At the same time, the technological development of coal power in China faces three challenges: the carbon locking has been formed, the energy saving and emission reduction technologies are limited, and the flexibility technologies needs to be optimized. Finally, through the comparative analysis of coal power with that in other countries, it is shown that China’s coal power units are close to or reach the world’s leading level in terms of advanced performance, coal consumption and carbon emission intensity. However the original creativity of coal power technologies and the accumulation of advanced energy-saving technologies and emission reduction technologies are insufficient which are in the catch-up stage. In the future, China should strengthen the flexibility of coal power operation and choose flexible operation strategy reasonably to ensure the best overall benefits with comprehensive consideration of flexibility needs, unit characteristics, economic benefits, environmental benefits. At the same time, China should actively develop low-carbon power generation technologies and emission reduction technologies to make technical reserves for the reduction and phase out of coal power. © 2023 China Coal Society. All rights reserved.
