How much coal power will China produce if clean heating proposals are not implemented?

This is equivalent to ~9% of Chinese coal power generation or ~5% of global coal power generation. If the new clean heating proposals are not implemented, coal CHP capacity will expand and operate in accordance with our high-coal scenario.

Does China's clean heating policy improve air quality?

Nature Energy 9, 1021–1031 (2024) Cite this article China’s clean heating policy since 2017 has notably improved air quality. However, the share of non-fossil sources in China’s urban district heating systems remain low, and many new coal-fired combined heat and power plants are being built.

Could China's district heating system be a near-term investment?

We develop three district heating scenarios (high coal, mid coal and low coal) to represent various possible near-term investment in China’s district heating systems between 2020 to 2030 (summarized in Table 1).

Should China decarbonize the district heating sector?

The Chinese government recently announced several proposals to decarbonize the district heating sector (Supplementary Table 1), which is critical for China to secure its climate goals. Our findings indicate the importance of these clean heating policy proposals for decarbonization of the economy.