Over the next twenty five years, three quarters of new coal plants will use high-efficiency low emissions (HELE) technology, reducing the proportion of less efficient subcritical plant in the global fleet to less than 40%, according to a new report.
The World Energy Outlook 2017 report, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), highlighted the continuation of improvements that will made in the efficiency of the world’s coal fleet.
It states: “Electricity generation from coal increases by some 10% through 2040, but coal burn in the power sector hardly increases, a clear sign that the world’s coal fleet becomes more efficient.”
This efficiency will be achieved through the use of clean coal technologies, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and high efficiency, low emission (HELE) technologies.
It is predicted by the report that, over the next 25 years, 75% of the 880 GW of new coal plants entering the market will use either supercritical (440 GW) or ultra-supercritical (235 GW) technologies, which will drastically increase the share of global clean plants, from over 60% to less than 40% in 2040.
Coal producing countries will look towards Japan as an example of the way forward as it has been described as having the most efficient plants in the world, which has been achieved with the use of HELE in its coal power plants. As a result, Japan exceeded IEA expectations and attained the highest average efficiency in the world for producing electricity at 42%.