COMMENTS 5 Aidan Turnbull Editor


natural gas can compete with each other for power generation under certain market conditions, but coal is generally more widely available and cheaper than natural gas. However, in terms of structures, natural gas-fired power


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plants are generally cheaper and quicker to build than coal-fired power plants, and also tend to have higher efficiencies and greater flexibility in plant operation. As electricity demand is expected to continue growing


exponentially in Asia, the question is raised to investors and policy-makers about whether coal or natural gas should be used to meet this growing demand. Despite large variation in the power generation mix and fuel


supply dynamics, coal remains attractive in nine countries. In China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, and South Korea, where coal-based generation is dominant, coal remains the most important fuel for power generation due to its low costs and greater availability. In other south-east Asian countries, although natural gas is


dominant in the generation mix, coal appears attractive due primarily to perceived domestic gas supply shortages and rise in gas prices resulting from expensive LNG imports. In Japan, for example, gas has become the fuel favoured by power utilities because of the uncertainty about the Japanese government’s energy policy and the new carbon tax which puts coal at a disadvantage to gas. Generation cost is not the only factor determining the


COAL & NATURAL GAS REMAIN THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT FUELS FOR ELECTRICITY GENERATION IN ASIA - BUT WHO WILL WIN?


n Asia, coal and natural gas are the two most important fuels for electricity generation, with a share of approxi- mately 40% and 22% in 2012, respectively. Coal and


competition between coal and gas in power generation. For instance, in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, the low cost of gas makes gas power cheaper than coal power. However, these countries are attempting to add more coalfired capacity to meet their increasing electricity demand. By way of contrast, in Japan where coal power is more economic than gas power, the country is building more gas CCGT power plants than coal


COAL VERSUS NATURAL GAS High-efficiency natural gas-fired power stations can produce up to 70% lower greenhouse gas emissions than existing brown coal-fired generators, and less than half the greenhouse gas emissions of the latest technology black coal-fired power stations. Exactly how much less CO2 gets produced also depends upon the type of gas-fired station. There are three main types: the steam boiler, the gas turbine and the combined cycle. The most efficient natural gas turbines are the combined cycle plants where hot exhaust gases are used to raise steam in a waste heat boiler. A combined-cycle gas turbine power plant consists of one or more gas turbine generators equipped with heat recovery steam generators to capture heat from the gas turbine exhaust. Steam produced in the heat recovery steam generators powers a steam turbine generator to produce additional electric power.


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Independent Power Asia August-September 2017


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