Recently, Unit 2 of Guangdong Qingyuan Power Plant achieved biomass co-firing at a 10% thermal substitution rate. This marks the first instance in China of a 1 GW unit realizing high-proportion biomass co-firing for power generation, filling a domestic technological gap and representing a significant breakthrough in the deployment of next-generation coal-fired power technologies. The achievement injects fresh impetus into the industry’s green and low-carbon transition.
Guangdong Qingyuan Power Plant, located in Shakou Town, Yingde City, Guangdong Province, is the only large-scale, clean, and efficient power plant in China operating four 1 GW double-reheat units under an integrated management model. Unit 2 pioneered a biomass-coupled power generation demonstration project. Leveraging the resource endowment of northern Guangdong, characterized by mountainous and hilly terrain and abundant agricultural, forestry, and furniture industry residues, the system was equipped with dedicated biomass pulverizing, storage, and pneumatic conveying facilities without requiring additional land. Local straw, forestry offcuts, and sawdust from furniture manufacturing are crushed, dried, pulverized, and then fed into the boiler for co-combustion with pulverized coal, achieving a 10% thermal substitution rate.. The project has established a full-chain technical system encompassing “safe storage of high-volatility powdered materials, low-cost and reliable pulverization of long-fiber low-grindability feedstocks, stable long-distance conveying at high solid-to-gas ratios, and efficient low-NOx stable combustion”. This has resolved persistent technical challenges such as high co-firing costs, spontaneous combustion risks, low throughput in pulverization and conveying, poor burnout of coarse particles, and severe fouling on heating surfaces. The initiative has been selected as a pilot project for new power system development capacity by the National Energy Administration.
During the co-firing trials, the mixed combustion of biomass and coal remained stable, and all critical operating parameters including furnace temperature, flue gas emissions, and unit load consistently within acceptable limits.
According to the project leader, Unit 2’s biomass co-firing, capitalizing on the renewable and life-cycle carbon-neutral nature of biomass, can replace 142,000 tonnes of standard coal and reduce CO2 emissions by 347,000 tonnes annually, an ecological benefit equivalent to planting 1.8 million trees. This approach not only alleviates the local issues of open burning and waste of agricultural and forestry residues, but also strengthens the unit’s peak-load combustion stability, offering a replicable and scalable reference model for the low-carbon transition and modernization of coal-fired power.
Moreover, through collaboration with local governments, the project has forged an industrial chain linking rural people, cooperatives, processing enterprises, and the power plant. This is expected to create more than 200 jobs and boost local rural people’s annual income by approximately RMB 15 million, thereby promoting the regional circular economy, optimizing the industrial structure, and contributing positively to the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.
