Clean coal to keep emissions at bay, propel use of renewable energy

Coal-fired power will continue to be the mainstay of China's electricity supply and will see a 45 percent growth from the current levels by 2040, despite expectations that the country may gradually move away from the commodity, experts said.

Though the government has said that it will cap China's coal use at 4.2 billion metric tons by 2020, the country's energy strategy for 2014 to 2020 shows that coal will be the main source of energy for a long time. At the same time, the government has also made it clear it would step up research into cleaner coal technologies.

China Shenhua Energy Co Ltd, the nation's biggest coal producer by volume, has already started to offer clean coal as part of its product range. Eager to cut pollutants and emissions, the company has built two ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants in Ninghai county and Zhoushan of East China's Zhejiang province.