Power Success Story: Huaneng

The Huaneng Group is China’s largest electricity generation company producing around 12% of China’s power. It also leads the way in the Chinese Government’s drive to be more energy efficient and last year opened one of the most efficient coal plants in the world and the largest of its kind at Yuhuan, Zhejiang Province.

Huaneng at a glance

How it led the way

While the Huaneng Group invests in renewable technology and biofuels, its main success has been in developing high-efficiency coal-burning technology. This has helped China begin to ‘leapfrog’ the less efficient coal technology that much of the developed world is currently locked into using.

First to go Super Critical

Back in 2002, Huaneng began constructing China’s first super-critical plant. The first 600MW units were finished by the end of 2004. These have a thermal conversion efficiency of about 40% - much higher than both the US and China average which is just over 30%. As of 2005, the Chinese government issued a regulation requiring all new coal power stations over 600MW to use super-critical technology.

First to go Ultra Super Critical

Even before the construction of the super-critical plant had been finished, Huaneng had already started developing an ultra super-critical (USC) power station. The USC technology, which had never previously been tried in China, has a thermal conversion efficiency of over 45%, which is very close to the world’s best available technology.

The result is the now world famous Yuhuan power station. Its first two 1GW USC units started working in December 2006, and were followed by two more 1GW units in November 2007. This makes it the largest USC plant in the world, able to provide power to around 10 million Chinese households.

Compared to China’s average coal-fired power station, running the plant saves 11 million metric tonnes of CO₂ per year from reaching the atmosphere. What’s more, the plant cost ¥15.6 billion (US$2.2 billion). This equates to only US$575 per kW installed – well below the equivalent cost for most international projects of US$1100-1200 per kW installed.

The future

According to its former chairman, Mr. Li Xiaopeng, the group aims to double its generation capacity by 2010 and become a Fortune 500 company.

Demand for USC is also increasing fast, partly thanks to support from the Chinese government. By March 2008, over 100GW of USC plant capacity had been ordered in China.

Lessons learnt

By leading the way in constructing China’s first supercritical plant, Huaneng influenced the Chinese government to require all new coal power stations over 600MW to use supercritical technology as of 2005.

By ‘leap-frogging’ less efficient technology, the ultra-super critical power plant has a thermal efficiency conversion nearly 15% greater than the current national average and was only half the typical cost per installed kW.