London — Coal-fired power generation in Taiwan will remain key to the county's economic plans, promoting the use of ultra-supercritical technology to reduce emissions, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said Thursday.

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"In the medium and long term, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has accelerated the promotion of coal-fired power plants, and requires the development of new or expanded power plants to adopt the best available technology," the ministry said.

Taiwan currently has 18.6 GW of installed coal-fired capacity, with an additional 4 GW planned and under construction, according to S&P Global Platts' plant capacity database.

Poor air quality in western Taiwan recently had seen coal-fired power generation come under increased scrutiny. However, the Ministry said power plants only accounted for 4.5%-9.9% of pollution and short-term load reduction and emission reducing operations had seen power plants help reduce sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions.

High-efficiency coal plants consume higher-quality thermal coal, and Taiwan sources its coal primarily from Australia, Indonesian and Russia. This sustained demand for high-CV coal is seen by market sources as bullish for coal as most key global pricing points are on a 6,000 kcal/kg NAR basis, similar to the specifications of coal consumed by Taiwan.

Taiwan had imported 45.71 million mt of thermal coal from January-August, according to customs data.

Of this, 50% was Australian, 25% was Indonesian, 16% was Russian, while the remainder was split between South Africa, the US and Colombia.

-- Joseph Clarke, joseph.clarke@spglobal.com

-- Edited by Derek Sands, newsdesk@spglobal.com