Potential of China's national policies on reducing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants in the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan

Coal-fired power is one of the largest contributors to China's carbon emissions. To promote its national low-carbon transition ambitions, the Chinese government has issued a series of policies to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants (CFPP) during its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025). This study mainly focuses on the mitigation potential of related national policies, using global optimization methods with double constraints on different policy implementation extents and power supply security under different scheduled views of national new energy developments. Thereby, 81 scenarios are set, and policy simulations till 2025 are conducted, achieving emission reductions ranging from 0.39 Gt to 1.04 Gt across scenarios. Specifically, if all policies are implemented as planned, they can bring significant changes, 0.64 Gt CO2 cumulative reduction and 25 Mt/GWh emitting efficiency improvement. But the simulated emission-changing trend shows that they may not be sufficient for the nation's target of peaking emissions before 2030, while results in higher-extent scenarios indicate that stronger implementation is required for this target. More relevant recommendations are also provided for subsequent sustainability policies on CFPPs in China.