The Prospects for Coal-fired Power Generation in Saudi Arabia

Key Points:Almost all of Saudi Arabia’s electric power generation is fueled by oil and gas. Plans for future capacity envisage nuclear and renewables supplementing this mix and freeing up oil for other revenue-generating opportunities. Coal-fired generation has been promoted in some Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries but not, so far, in the Kingdom. Our analysis finds that: At current administered prices of oil and gas, other resources of energy such as solar, nuclear, or imported coal are not competitive for power generation.If decisions were made based on deregulated oil and gas prices: with the reference coal price, only moderate levels of coal-fired capacity would be introduced. If the remaining capacity were made up of nuclear and solar, this would result in lower Saudi CO2 emissions from power generation than under a ‘business as usual’ scenario. with the low coal price, CO2 emissions in 2030 cannot be maintained at their current level since coal, rather than solar and nuclear, is used to displace oil and gas from the generation fuel mix.Some forecasts of coal markets anticipate significant increases in real export prices, which would make coal-fired power generation unattractive compared with constructing nuclear power.About the Project We developed the KAPSARC Energy Model for Saudi Arabia (KEM-SA) to understand the dynamics of the country’s energy system. It is a partial equilibrium model formulated as a mixed complementarity problem to capture the administered prices that permeate the local economy. KEM-SA has been previously used to study the impacts of various industrial fuel pricing policies and improved residential efficiency on the energy economy. In the present paper, we use it to assess the feasibility of a power generation technology.

核心要点：沙特阿拉伯几乎全部电力发电均以石油和天然气作为燃料。该国未来发电产能规划设想以核电与可再生能源补充现有燃料结构，并盘活石油资源用于其他创收用途。海湾阿拉伯国家合作委员会（Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC）部分成员国已推广燃煤发电，但截至目前沙特王国尚未推行该项技术。

本研究分析结果如下：
1. 在当前石油与天然气管制价格体系下，太阳能、核电或进口煤炭等其他能源资源在发电领域均不具备竞争力。
2. 若基于放松管制后的石油与天然气价格进行决策：当采用煤炭基准价格时，仅会引入适度规模的燃煤发电产能；若剩余产能由核电与太阳能发电填补，则沙特电力领域的二氧化碳排放量将低于“常规发展情景”下的排放水平。
3. 若采用低煤炭价格情景，2030年的二氧化碳排放量将无法维持当前水平——因为此时用于替代发电燃料结构中石油与天然气的是煤炭，而非太阳能与核电。
4. 部分煤炭市场预测报告预计煤炭实际出口价格将大幅上涨，这将使得燃煤发电相较于核电建设不再具备经济吸引力。

项目概况：我们研发了面向沙特阿拉伯的KAPSARC能源模型（KEM-SA），用于剖析该国能源系统的运行动态。该模型属于局部均衡模型，采用混合互补问题（mixed complementarity problem）框架构建，旨在精准捕捉渗透于沙特本地经济的管制价格体系。此前KEM-SA已被应用于各类工业燃料定价政策以及住宅能效提升对该国能源经济的影响研究。在本研究中，我们借助该模型评估各类发电技术的可行性。