Emba Hunutlu power station is a 1320 MW coal fired power station in Turkey in

Adana Province Adana Province ( tr, ) is a province of Turkey located in central Cilicia. With a population of 2.26 million, it is the sixth most populous province in Turkey. The administrative seat of the province is the city of Adana, home to 79% of the r ...

. it is the largest Chinese foreign direct investment in the country. Despite opposition from many

environmental organisations An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environmen ...

the plant was started up in 2022 and burns Russian coal as it is cheaper than other coal. The plant is less than 2 km from another coal-fired power station, İsken Sugözü.

History

The project was proposed in 2012. In 2015 it was licensed, despite environmental protests, and Shanghai Electric Power said it would be China's largest ever direct investment in Turkey. In April 2019 a

Belt and Road Initiative The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R), formerly known as One Belt One Road ( zh, link=no, 一带一路) or OBOR for short, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 150 ...

deal was signed to build the 1320 MW power station and construction started in September. It is also part of Turkey's Middle Corridor. In June 2022 opposition

Republican People's Party The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party ...

Adana deputy Burhanettin Bulut called for a Parliamentary inquiry, complaining that the power plant was about to be started up despite ongoing lawsuits and a one hundred thousand signature petition. Unit 1 started up in July 2022 and the other unit in October.

Ownership

The project is a joint venture between Shanghai Electric Power (a subsidiary of China's

State Power Investment Corporation State Power Investment Corporation Limited (abbreviation SPIC) is one of the five major electricity generation companies in China. It was the successor of China Power Investment Corporation after it was merged with the State Nuclear Power Tec ...

), Avic-Intl Project Engineering Company (3%), and two Turkish local investors, Mete Bülgün, CEO of the joint venture and Adnan Demir (9.4% each) with Shanghai Electric Power holding 78%.

Finance and economics

The finance is 20% capital and the rest a 15-year $1.381 billion loan from China Development Bank,

Bank of China The Bank of China (BOC; ) is a Chinese majority state-owned commercial bank headquartered in Beijing and the fourth largest bank in the world. The Bank of China was founded in 1912 by the Republican government as China's central bank, repl ...

and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. In 2021 Turkey targeted net zero carbon emissions by 2053. According to Banktrack the project is struggling with finance.

Subsidies

By 2020, according to

Carbon Tracker Carbon Tracker is a London-based not-for-profit think tank researching the impact of climate change on financial markets. Carbon Tracker popularized the notion of a carbon bubble, which describes the incompatibility between the continued devel ...

, both new wind and solar power were cheaper than building new coal power plants; and they forecast that wind would become cheaper than existing coal plants in 2027, and solar in 2023: so they say that constructing the plant is a waste of money. However the company benefited from

value-added tax A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the en ...

exemptions of almost 3.5 billion

lira Lira is the name of several currency units. It is the current currency of Turkey and also the local name of the currencies of Lebanon and of Syria. It is also the name of several former currencies, including those of Italy, Malta and Israe ...

in 2016."Coal & Climate Change - 2017,"
Önder Algedik, Aug 2017 WWF say it will make a loss.

Construction

Test piles have been constructed and in April 2019 Shanghai Electric Power said that "the successful signing of the facility agreement indicates that the project construction will enter into a fast-growth period". However construction of the coal silos was delayed.

Employment

The company says it will employ 4000 people in construction and 500 in operation.

Design and specification

The

thermal power station A thermal power station is a type of power station in which heat energy is converted to electrical energy. In a steam-generating cycle heat is used to boil water in a large pressure vessel to produce high-pressure steam, which drives a stea ...

would have 2x660 MW Ultra Super critical units with

steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

pressure of 27

MPa MPA or mPa may refer to: Academia Academic degrees * Master of Performing Arts * Master of Professional Accountancy * Master of Public Administration * Master of Public Affairs Schools * Mesa Preparatory Academy * Morgan Park Academy * Mou ...

and reheat steam temperature of 600°C.

Coal supply

Imported coal is stored in 3 large sea side silos, and the plant can also run on local coal.

Electricity generation

Efficiency

The design is for gross efficiency up to 46% with a gross coal consumption rate less than 270 g/ kWh (7000

kcal The calorie is a unit of energy. For historical reasons, two main definitions of "calorie" are in wide use. The large calorie, food calorie, or kilogram calorie was originally defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of o ...

/kg LHV standard coal).

Cooling system

The plant would be cooled by water from

Iskenderun Bay The Gulf of Alexandretta or İskenderun ( tr, İskenderun Körfezi) is a gulf of the eastern Mediterranean or Levantine Sea. It lies beside the southern Turkish provinces of Adana and Hatay. Names The gulf is named for the nearby Turkish city ...

Waste products

Local air pollution control

Nitrogen Oxides

The

selective catalytic reduction Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is a means of converting nitrogen oxides, also referred to as with the aid of a catalyst into diatomic nitrogen (), and water (). A reductant, typically anhydrous ammonia (), aqueous ammonia (), or a urea () ...

is designed to be more than 70% efficient, and according to the company will reduce

NOx In atmospheric chemistry, is shorthand for nitric oxide () and nitrogen dioxide (), the nitrogen oxides that are most relevant for air pollution. These gases contribute to the formation of smog and acid rain, as well as affecting tropo ...

emissions to less than 100mg/Nm3.

Sulfur Dioxide and Dust

The design is for a combination of

electrostatic precipitator An electrostatic precipitator (ESP) is a filterless device that removes fine particles, like dust and smoke, from a flowing gas using the force of an induced electrostatic charge minimally impeding the flow of gases through the unit. In con ...

s, flue-gas desulfurization and

wet scrubber The term wet scrubber describes a variety of devices that remove pollutants from a furnace flue gas or from other gas streams. In a wet scrubber, the polluted gas stream is brought into contact with the scrubbing liquid, by spraying it with the ...

s to reduce dust emissions to less than 5mg/Nm3.

Mercury

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

was not mentioned in the

Environmental Impact Assessment Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term "environmental imp ...

but has been estimated at 175.5 kg/year.

Health and safety

A public meeting was due to be held in January 2022 to discuss the environmental impact report for Emba Hunutlu, with the owners now adding 43 MW of wind and 37 MW of solar (the electricity for use on site), to the 1320 MW of coal power which had been due to open in 2021. The company say that they devote themselves to building a power plant with "no pollution". But environmental groups estimate that air pollution from the power station would cause an extra 50 early deaths per year. Another estimate is that closing the plant by 2030, instead of when its licence ends in 2064, would prevent over 5000 premature deaths. The company has published safety guidelines.

Environmental effects

An expert report in 2020 concluded that the plant would be contrary to the İskenderun Bay (Adana-Mersin-Hatay) Integrated Coastal Areas Plan's principles, and opponents say it contravenes the Biodiversity Convention.

Water

According to WWF-Turkey the project threatens the

loggerhead sea turtle The loggerhead sea turtle (''Caretta caretta'') is a species of oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around in carapace length when fully ...

s and green sea turtles which nest on nearby Sugözü Beach. Quoting the project

environmental impact assessment Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term "environmental imp ...

as saying that the outgoing cooling water will be 7°C higher than the sea water, they say temperatures could exceed 35°C in summer and be fatal to the turtles. Coal shipments and delivery might also disturb the turtles.

Dust

Turkey has no legal limit on fine

particulate Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The te ...

(PM2.5) emissions. The Health and Environment Alliance say that TurkStat figures show

respiratory disease Respiratory diseases, or lung diseases, are pathology, pathological conditions affecting the organs and tissues that make gas exchange difficult in Breathing, air-breathing animals. They include conditions of the respiratory tract including the t ...

s have already increased in Adana Province, and that could be due to other coal-fired power stations.

Greenhouse gases

Shanghai Electric Power Company says it is "sustainable power generation" but the power station will increase Turkey's greenhouse gas emissions: if operational according to its design

capacity factor The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is def ...

and lifetime it will emit over 200 million tonnes of

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

Opposition

TEMA Foundation The Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion ( tr, Türkiye Erozyonla Mücadele, Ağaçlandırma ve Doğal Varlıkları Koruma Vakfı), better known in abbreviated form as TEMA, is a non-governmental organization (NGO) for reforestation and t ...

filed a lawsuit in 2017 and in 2018 several other organisations under the grouping of Doğu Akdeniz Çevre Platformu (East Mediterranean Environment Platform) were in ongoing legal action in Ankara."Bilirkişiden ‘termik santral halk sağlığını bozar’ raporu"
Hürriyet, January 28, 2018

References

External links

Emba Hunutlu power station
on

Global Energy Monitor Global Energy Monitor (GEM) is a San Francisco-based non-governmental organization which catalogs fossil fuel and renewable energy projects worldwide. GEM shares information in support of clean energy and its data and reports on energy trends ...

Banktrack
an
updates

Plan additions and revisions (Turkish)
{{Power stations in Turkey Coal-fired power stations in Turkey Buildings and structures in Adana Protests in Turkey Environmentalism in Turkey Belt and Road Initiative