On October 7, Nature Energy published an article titled “Substantial emission reductions from Chinese power plants after the introduction of ultra-low emission standards” by Prof. Tang Ling from the School of Economics and Management of Beihang University, PhD Student Xue Xiaoda and other collaborators. The study found that Chinese coal-fired power plants have reached ultra-low emission standards in advance, which conveys China’s confidence and determination in reducing emissions to the world. Furthermore, their efforts also provide more data analysis and technological support for China to further reduce power emissions in the near future.
China has launched the largest-scale fight against haze with the greatest determination in recent years. On September 1, 2014, it introduced an ultra-low emissions (ULE) standards policy for renovating coal-fired power generating units, a key pollution source. The ULE standards policy proposed even tougher emission standards which surpassed those of all other countries and were equivalent to the standards of natural-gas-fired units. Furthermore, the policy set a high-level goal, requiring that 580 million kilowatt (KW) installed capacity of existing units (accounting for 71% of the total coal-power capacity in 2014) meet the ULE standards by 2020.
By analyzing the data from continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS), researchers constructed a brand-new set of emission inventory models and developed a high-resolution emissions database of Chinese power plants, effectively overcoming the disadvantages of more parameters and uncertainties of traditional ways. Chinese coal-fired plants have achieved the renovation goal of ultra-low emission (ULE) standards in advance with the emission concentrations of SO2, NOx and particulate matter (PM) dropping by 65%, 60% and 72% respectively. Such success comes from China’s strict emission supervision system and effective economic incentive mechanism as well as the nation-wide application and upgrading of ultra-low emission (ULE) technology.
Based on the cooperation between teams from China and Britain, the research was made by Prof. Tang Ling and researchers from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, University of Cambridge, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China National Environment Monitoring Centre and Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The research article is available at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0468-1
Reported by Lin Yaohu
Reviewed by Fan Ying
Edited by Jia Aiping
Translated by Feng Yueyue
