Cofiring biomass with coal for power generation is an affordable and ready-to-deploy technology to help reduce carbon emissions and resolve residual biomass. Cofiring has not been widely applied in China primarily because of some practical limitations, i.e., biomass accessibility, technological and economic constraints, and lack of policy support. We identified the benefits of cofiring with consideration of these practical limitations based on Integrated Assessment Models. We found that China produces 1.82 Bts/year of biomass residues, 45% of which is waste. 48% of the unused biomass can be utilized without fiscal intervention and 70% can be utilized with the subsidized Feed-in-Tariffs for biopower and carbon trading. The average Marginal Abatement Cost of cofiring is twice that of China's current carbon price. Cofiring can help China create 153 billion yuan of farmers' income annually and reduce 5.3 Bts of Committed Cumulative Carbon Emissions (CCCEs, 2023-2030), contributing to the needed CCCE mitigations to China's overall sector and the power sector by 32 and 86%, respectively. About 201 GW of coal-fired fleets are not compliant with China's 2030 carbon-peaking goals, and 127 GW can be saved by implementing cofiring, representing 9.6% of the total fleets in 2030.
Keywords: Feed-in-Tariffs; abatement cost; biomass cofiring; carbon target; carbon trading; coal power; cumulative emissions; stranded assets.