China Huaneng Group (CHNG), the country's largest power producer, has formally joined forces with FutureGen Industrial Alliance, a US-based non-profit company in partnership with the US Department of Energy, to build the world's first near-zero emission coal-fired power plant.

CHNG signed an agreement with the alliance which currently has seven members, all of them electric utilities and coal giants in the US in Beijing yesterday.

Work on the US$1 billion FutureGen, which is a US-government-sponsored initiative to build the world's first integrated sequestration (a chemical process) and hydrogen production research power plant, began in 2003.

It is expected to take 10 years to complete, with research results to be shared among all participants and industry as a whole. CHNG will invest US$20 million in the project.

"As a power company that uses coal as its main fuel, it is of great significance for CHNG to join this alliance," said Li Xiaopeng, president of CHNG.

Coal-based power generation accounts for more than 80 percent of the electricity produced by CHNG.

It had an installed generation capacity of 409.8 billion kilowatts as of June this year, accounting for nearly 9 percent of the country's total.

"Participation (in the alliance) shows our unrelenting commitment to find efficient, energy-saving and environmentally-friendly ways to generate power," Li said.

"It is of enormous significance for China and the US to join hands to forge this partnership in order to find environmentally-friendly solutions to curb greenhouse emissions, especially those resulting from coal," said Victor Der, a senior official from the US Department of Energy.

CHNG's participation in the alliance is also seen as an important part of Sino-US energy cooperation.

"This marks a milestone in energy science and technology cooperation between China and the US," said Ken Humphreys from the FutureGen Industrial Alliance.

(China Daily October 28, 2005)