China will overfulfil the target of coal consumption control

In 2020, China's total coal consumption and the proportion of primary energy will reach 3.8 billion tons and 55.8% respectively, which can exceed the 13th five year plan. On November 14, the Sixth International Symposium on total coal consumption control and energy transformation was held in Beijing. The group of China coal consumption total control program and policy research project (hereinafter referred to as coal control research project) made the above prediction. The year 2020 is the end of the 13th five year plan. According to the requirements of the 13th five year plan for energy development, by 2020, China's total coal consumption will be controlled within 4.1 billion tons, which should be reduced to 58%. However, it is still difficult to achieve the target of 3.5 billion tons of coal consumption and 55% of the total coal consumption proposed by the coal control research project. In 2017 and 2018, China's coal consumption rebounded for two consecutive years. 2019-2020 is the key year for the realization of coal control objectives. At the meeting, Chen Wenling, chief economist of China International Economic Exchange Center, said that in the face of economic downward pressure, China should strengthen the cultivation of new generation of energy conservation and emission reduction, information digital technology, biology and new materials and other emerging industries in the future, promote the development of renewable energy, avoid increasing infrastructure investment and stimulating significant coal consumption growth brought by the growth of high energy consuming industries. Yang Fuqiang, member of the core group of coal control research project and senior consultant of NRDC, pointed out at the meeting that in order to achieve the goal of coal control during the 13th five year plan, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan and Fenwei plain, as areas with large coal production consumption and serious air pollution, should actively promote the implementation of coal control policies.

Shandong Province is the largest coal consumption province in China. In 2018, the coal consumption was 423 million tons, accounting for 74.5% of the province's primary energy consumption. During the 13th Five Year Plan period, although the total coal consumption in Shandong Province has declined, it rebounded in 2018, an increase of 0.75% over 2017. In July 2019, the general office of the people's Government of Shandong Province issued the guidance on strictly controlling the total coal consumption and promoting clean and efficient utilization. It is planned to reduce the coal consumption by 50 million tons in about five years. For the future coal control work, Xu Chongqing, director of the Institute of ecology, Shandong Academy of Sciences, suggested at the meeting that in the future, Shandong Province should make efforts from both sides of supply and demand to realize the total coal consumption control and promote the transformation of new and old kinetic energy in Shandong Province. According to Xu Chongqing, on the supply side, we should improve the quality of coal and make efficient use of it. At the same time, we should make full use of waste heat and residual pressure resources to continuously improve the development and utilization scale of renewable energy. On the demand side, we should implement accurate statistics of coal consumption, establish a large platform for energy data, control the scale of high energy consumption industries, and constantly strengthen terminal energy conservation. Shanxi Province is the first comprehensive reform pilot of energy revolution in China. In 2017, the total coal consumption of Shanxi Province was 320 million tons, accounting for 84.6% of the primary energy consumption, 24.2 percentage points higher than the national level. Yuan Jin, Professor of the school of environment and engineering, Taiyuan University of technology, pointed out that as a major coal production and consumption province, Shanxi Province still has a large gap between the energy consumption indicators of major energy consuming products such as power, steel, cement and the national average level. The energy consumption per unit GDP of the province is twice that of the whole country, and the per capita energy consumption is about 1.5 times that of the whole country. To this end, Yuan Jin put forward five key measures, namely, promoting clean and efficient utilization of coal, focusing on the construction of clean energy supply base, strengthening energy conservation priority and total amount control, improving the capacity of renewable energy consumption, and accelerating the implementation of electric energy substitution. The coal control research project was launched in October 2013 by NRDC, an international environmental protection agency, as the project coordination unit, together with more than 20 institutions including government think tanks, scientific research institutes and industry associations.