Prediction of Coal-Fired Power Generation Cost

Abstract

China is not only a big country with coal production, but also a big country with coal consuming. The amount of coal used in coal-fired power generation in China accounts for 30% of the total production each year, but its power generation accounts for 75% of the total power generation. Although all kinds of coal is still the main energy source in China, the proportion of coal-fired power generation will gradually decrease from 2020, and the use of renewable energy will increase. CPPs in China are mainly distributed in the north and the east of China. However, coal reserves are distributed in the northern and western part on a national scale. The cost of coal-fired power generation has always been a hot topic. It is necessary to add fresh water cost and environmental cost to the total cost of coal-fired power generation. However, there are few studies to precisely consider all kinds of possible cost in the CPPs and estimate the cost of coal-fired power generation in the future. This article firstly revises the resources cost estimation in the existing literature. Water consumption for coal extraction, transportation, combustion and circulating cooling is estimated at 0.018 CNY/kWh. Based on the internal resources cost and external environmental cost, this paper established a fitting model to obtain the trend of cost over time. Lastly, it is predicted that the cost growth trend of coal-fired power generation will reach the peak in 2020 at around 0.908 CNY/kWh, and then it will rapidly decrease year by year.