Effectiveness assessment and prospect for pollution and carbon emission reduction in the thermal power industry

The thermal power industry serves as the backbone of China's power system. Despite a continuous decline in its share of electricity generation, it still contributed 63.2% of China's total power output in 2024, making it a primary source of atmospheric pollutants and carbon emissions. Taking 2003 as the baseline year, this paper establishes a quantitative assessment method for pollution and carbon reduction, focusing on evaluating the effectiveness of pollution and carbon mitigation in the thermal power sector from 2004 to 2024. The results show that, compared with the emission intensity of 2003, the thermal power industry achieved cumulative reductions of 151 million tonnes (Mt) of smoke and dust, 426 Mt of SO₂, and 228 Mt of NO_x over the period. End-of-pipe treatment technologies played a significant role, with average contribution rates of 81.5%, 80.1%, and 73.2%, respectively. The cumulative carbon reduction reached 13.18 billion tonnes, experiencing three distinct phases: rapid decline, moderate decline, and sustained advancement. In the future, end-of-pipe treatment will remain the dominant pathway for reducing air pollutants in the thermal power industry, and needs to be upgraded to integrated ultra-clean emission technologies for multiple pollutants. Meanwhile, in terms of carbon reduction, the potential for energy conservation and efficiency improvement is narrowing, making it urgent to achieve deep decarbonization through diversified approaches such as low-carbon fuel substitution, carbon capture, utiliazation and storage (CCUS). The key to synergistically advancing co-benefits of pollution and carbon reduction lies in achieving breakthroughs in original full-chain technologies covering source fuel substitution, system-wide intelligent optimization, and end-of-pipe treatment. This will provide solid scientific and technological support for the green, low-carbon transformation of the thermal power industry and the long-term improvement of environmental quality.