The latest policy draft from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) suggests that the country will proceed with a plan to phase out inefficient coal-fired power plants to reduce the coal share in its total energy mix to 26% by 2030 from 31% in 2019. Coal power units with no emissions-cutting technologies, such as integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) and ultra-supercritical (USC), will be retired.
Output capacity from coal plants using less efficient supercritical and subcritical technology is projected to fall from 16.1GW across 39 units in 2019-2020 to 9GW at 20 units in 2030-2031. In contrast, the capacity of IGCC and USGC coal plants is forecast to increase from 22.67GW across 30 units to 27GW at 35 units over the same period. Coal-fired power units operated by non-utility companies are mostly inefficient, and their capacity is expected to decline from 9.14GW across 80 units to 12GW across 90 units in the same period.
In July 2020, METI proposed a plan to retire inefficient coal plants over the next decade to reduce Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions. In October, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced a target to make Japan a carbon-neutral economy by 2050, which accelerated efforts to cut coal-fired power generation capacity. METI also introduced a new target whereby power producers are required to achieve over 43% efficiency for their coal units by 2030. The strict target can be met by decreasing the utilization rate of inefficient units and increasing co-firing of cleaner fuels such as ammonia and biomass.
