Method for quantifying the average carbon footprint of coal-fired power based on non-random samples

doi:10.11930/j.issn.1004-9649.202510069

Abstract

Abstract:

To address the challenge of selecting representative units for quantifying the average carbon footprint per unit of electricity generation of coal-fired units nationwide or in a specific region, and to provide scientific support for the quantification of the average carbon footprint factors of coal-fired power across the country, it is necessary for the research to focus on the representativeness analysis method of non-random samples for the overall carbon footprint of coal-fired power. As the dominant source of carbon emissions in China's power industry (accounting for approximately 88%), coal-fired power, due to its large installed capacity and complex influencing factors, makes analyzing overall characteristics through representative samples a feasible approach. Firstly, it is clarified that the core links of coal-fired power carbon footprint are coal combustion (accounting for 93.0%) and coal acquisition (accounting for 6.5%), jointly contributing to over 99% of carbon emissions. The coal consumption level and the carbon emission factor of power coal are the essential factors affecting the carbon footprint. Secondly, three types of methods for constructing new representative samples based on over a hundred existing quantitative samples are proposed, including indirectly proving representativeness through consistency verification of key parameters, supplementing missing samples by multi-dimensional stratification, and conducting weighted resampling to match the overall distribution. Finally, 171 sample datasets are generated by combining existing data. The deviations between their power generation coal consumption (286.9 g/(kW·h)) and carbon content per unit calorific value (26.39 t/TJ) with the corresponding indicators of the overall population composed of 1964 power plants (286.7 g/(kW·h) and 26.28 t/TJ) are only –0.07% and –0.415%, respectively, verifying the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Key words: coal-fired power generation, carbon footprint, non-random samples, mathematical analysis

WANG Zhixuan, ZHANG Jingjie, SHI Lina, FENG Tianfeng, WANG Chenlong, DU Xinxin, LEI Yuwei, GU Erxue. Method for quantifying the average carbon footprint of coal-fired power based on non-random samples[J]. Electric Power, 2026, 59(2): 71-80.

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URL: https://www.electricpower.com.cn/EN/10.11930/j.issn.1004-9649.202510069

https://www.electricpower.com.cn/EN/Y2026/V59/I2/71

Figures/Tables 5

Fig.1 Quantification boundary of carbon footprint for typical coal-fired power generation

Fig.2 Proportion of various categories of emissions in the life cycle stage of the power units (including the infrastructure equipment) for carbon footprint calculation

Fig.3 Analysis of variance contribution rate

Fig.4 Distribution characteristics obtained through calculation based on environmental statistical data of coal-fired units

Table 1 Comparison between non-random sample selection and population characteristic parameters

特征值	样本（171个）	总体（1964个）
发电煤耗/(g·(kW·h)^–1)	286.9	286.7
煤耗标准差/(g·(kW·h)^–1)	2.06	1.12
单位热值含碳量/(t·TJ^–1)	26.39	26.28
单位热值含碳量标准差/(t·TJ^–1)	0.41	0.20

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