Huge increases in electricity demand, averaging more than 13% annually in 2001-2008, had accompanied the rapid economic growth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the years leading to the project appraisal in 2009. As supply could not keep pace with demand, power shortages became rampant in some areas. The situation led to an accelerated program of new power generation capacity addition in 2006, most of which was coal-based.
The Tianjin IGCC Power Plant Project evolved against this backdrop. It aimed to demonstrate an internationally available and more advanced clean coal technology, the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) which, when combined with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), has the potential to cut emissions drastically and significantly reduce local air pollution. It was to kickstart the government’s flagship clean coal program, GreenGen, which comprised three phases. With the Tianjin project as a cornerstone, the first phase would establish evidence of IGCC advantages and viability. In the second phase, a scaled-up IGCC plant fitted with pilot-scale CCS would be constructed, and the third phase was expected to provide a scaled-up IGCC plant, including large-scale CCS, with near-zero emissions.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a loan of $135 million in February 2010 to help finance the project, which had 3 planned outputs (i) construction and operation of an IGCC power plant with a 250-megawatt capacity, (ii) adequate capacity in project management, safeguard compliance, and plant operation and maintenance, and (iii) capacity development for obtaining carbon offset revenues. ADB’s Climate Change Fund provided a grant of $5 million to significantly reduce risk and strengthen project management capacity. The Export–Import Bank of China acted as the principal onlending agency.
Despite its complex design, the Tianjin IGCC plant was completed successfully and on schedule, commencing operations in December 2012. However, plant operators encountered difficulties in synchronizing the highly complex system of components during trial operation. Following commissioning, some reliability challenges were also encountered with some equipment components. Nevertheless, after 1 year of trial operations, the power plant attained a high degree of reliability, enabling the project to achieve its planned outcome of demonstrating an advanced clean coal technology that helped meet growing electricity demand in an environmentally sustainable manner.
At completion, the plant can produce 1,470 gigawatt-hours as designed but actual production in 2016 amounted to only 90% of capacity due to power grid constraints. By using less coal, the project had reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions equivalent to 0.45 million tons in 2013−2016 and is expected to result in an additional 3.5 million tons of CO2 reduction during its economic life, or about 0.16 million tons per year. Significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions and particulate matter had also been achieved.
$105.7 million of the $135-million ADB loan, comprising 20% of the total actual project cost, was used and the rest was cancelled. The China Huaneng Group, a state-owned enterprise and PRC’s largest electric company, was the executing agency. The Huaneng Tianjin Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle Company Limited was the
