World Coal Association : CIAB publishes a report about the socio-economic benefits of HELE

The Coal Industry Advisory Board (CIAB), a body established to advise the International Energy Agency (IEA), published a report earlier this month titled 'The Socio-economic Impacts of Advanced Technology Coal-Fuelled Power Stations ' (pdf).

The analysis illustrates the potential of high efficiency low emissions (HELE) power units for power generation, with three case studies being presented for China, Germany and India.

Today there are 1.3 billion people across the globe without access to electricity. This is equivalent to the entire population of China. It is a huge challenge. 2.7 billion people do not have clean cooking facilities and rely on dung and wood. The report identifies that electrification is a critical element in the development of societies; electrification leads to advancements in public health, education, transportation, communications, manufacturing and trade.

The report focuses on three case studies to highlight how new approaches and HELE technologies reduce energy poverty and support economic competitiveness through affordable energy while reducing emissions of CO2. India, China and Germany share a critical characteristic: coal plays a key role in the current energy mix, and going forward without coal-fired power generation is not practical. The report goes on to demonstrate a series of socioeconomic benefits accrue to the population of each region which vary according to the unique characteristics of each power plant:

• Reliance Sasan Power in central India uses supercritical technology - equivalent of removing 641,000 vehicles from the road compared to subcritical stations. It is a key economic stimulator for the region with almost 200,000 people benefiting, both directly and indirectly, over the 25 year life cycle of the plant. Once at full capacity the plant will generate enough electricity for 17.5 million people across seven states. The co-benefits include power to 12,000 schools and 10,000 hospital beds.
• The report also identifies that if the least efficient 500 TWh of power generation in China's national coal fleet were to be upgraded to the same technology used at Zhoushan Unit 4, this could reduce China's CO2 by about 850 million tonnes each year and it would achieve this reduction at a much lower cost than any other equivalent, scalable, emission reduction strategy currently available in China. The report suggests that it is much more affordable to continue along the coal development path way rather than transitioning towards natural gas which would cost USD 75 billion annually.
• Neurath coal plant in western Germany generates up to 17 TWh of electricity per year - enough to satisfy the energy needs of 2.3 million people - almost twice the population of Munich. The lignite generating fleet in Germany, which includes Neurath, saves consumers approximately 2.2 billion euros annually compared to replacement with gas-fuelled generation, reducing wholesale electricity prices by approximately 7%.

The World Coal Association (WCA) has been advocating that environmental imperatives, energy security, economic development and an end to poverty are issues which are inextricably linked. In order to achieve emissions reductions consistent with international climate objectives, we need to balance these issues, recognising the importance of low-cost energy and the need to widen the deployment of all low emission technologies.

Raising the average global efficiency of coal plants from 33% to 40% with off-the-shelf technology available today would save 2 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions. This is equivalent of running the Kyoto Protocol three times over.

The WCA has proposed the establishment of a global Platform to Accelerate Coal Efficiency (PACE) to help deliver high efficiency low emission coal-fired power generation in the developing world and we stand ready to work with international partners to support its implementation.