Beijing Restarts Coal-Fired Power Plant as Extreme Cold Grips Capital

What’s new: All four coal-fired units in Beijing’s only coal plant are again back up and running to meet the rising heating demand in the city, the plant operator announced on Tuesday.

The Huaneng Beijing Thermal Power Plant, located in the eastern part of the capital, was closed in 2017 as the municipal authorities sought to turn the city’s power plants green.

Nevertheless, this is the sixth time since then that the thermal plant has been used to meet an increasing demand for power, the operator told Caixin.

What’s the background: The coal plant was built in 1999 and has an installed capacity of 845,000 kilowatts, according to Huaneng’s website. Amid this colder-than-usual winter season, the electricity load on Beijing’s power grid reached 21.56 million kilowatts on Dec. 15, breaking the local daily record, according to data from State Grid Beijing Electric Power Co. Ltd.

The company forecast that the load could rise to 23 million kilowatts at some point this winter.

Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use.To read the full Caixin article in Chinese, click here.

Contact reporter Lu Yutong (yutonglu@caixin.com) and editor Heather Mowbray (heathermowbray@caixin.com)

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