China increases limits on construction of coal-fired power plants

BEIJING, Oct 20 (Reuters) - China will further limit construction of coal-fired power plants by cancelling some projects that were already approved this year, its national energy bureau said on Thursday, as Beijing ramps up a years-long effort to shift to cleaner fuels.

China will postpone construction of some coal-fired plants that have already secured approval, in addition to taking other measures, said a statement posted on the National Energy Administration (NEA) website.

The agency will also stop the building of any project that started this year and reassess the schedule for those that started in 2015, it said.
It was not immediately clear how many plants this might involve.

The NEA will also limit the capacity of some big coal power projects in major coal producing regions that are still under construction, it said.
In Xinjiang, the planned output for the East Junggar Basin Coal Electricity Complex plant will be cut in half, while in Inner Mongolia, the Xinlin Gol project capacity will be capped at 7.3 million KwH per year by 2020, it said.

The plan is an expansion of the government's prolonged effort to produce power from renewable energy such as solar and wind, and wean the country off coal, which accounts for the majority of the nation's power supply.

(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk and Meng Meng; Writing by Josephine Mason; Editing by Tom Hogue)