What are the biggest coal power plants in the world?

The highest-emitting coal power plant is Taean in South Korea, at roughly 29 Mt CO₂e per year. Coal stations make up 47 of the 50 dirtiest power plants worldwide — large baseload units running near-continuously. Top coal countries: China (30), South Africa (8), India (5), South Korea (3), Poland (1).

Top emitters (CO₂e per year, modelled)

Source: Climate TRACE v6 + WRI GPPD (CC BY 4.0). Modelled estimates.

Biggest coal plants by CO₂ (Mt/yr)

Source: Climate TRACE v6 + WRI GPPD (CC BY 4.0). Modelled.

Explore the full data: dirtiest power-plant ranking →

Cite or embed this data

Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Click a box to select, then Ctrl/Cmd-C. Download the full dataset (CSV) · Zenodo snapshot v2, released 2026-07.

Harvard

Inzonex PowerAtlas (2026) What are the biggest coal power plants in the world?. Available at: https://inzonex.co.uk/poweratlas/answers/biggest-coal-power-plants-in-the-world/ (Accessed: 12 June 2026).

APA 7

Inzonex PowerAtlas. (2026). What are the biggest coal power plants in the world? [Data set]. https://inzonex.co.uk/poweratlas/answers/biggest-coal-power-plants-in-the-world/

BibTeX

@misc{inzonex_poweratlas_2026,
  author = {Inzonex PowerAtlas},
  title = {What are the biggest coal power plants in the world?},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://inzonex.co.uk/poweratlas/answers/biggest-coal-power-plants-in-the-world/}},
  note = {Open power-plant emissions data, CC BY 4.0. Accessed 2026-06-12}
}

Embed this card (HTML)

<div style="font-family:system-ui,Arial,sans-serif;max-width:430px;border:1px solid #e2e5ea;border-radius:10px;padding:14px 16px;background:#fff"><div style="font-size:11px;color:#f57c00;font-weight:700;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:.05em">Inzonex PowerAtlas</div><div style="font-size:15px;font-weight:600;margin:4px 0 6px;color:#1a1a1a">What are the biggest coal power plants in the world?</div><div style="font-size:13px;color:#5b616e;line-height:1.5">Open data on global power-plant CO₂ emissions (Climate TRACE + WRI Global Power Plant Database, CC BY 4.0).</div><a href="https://inzonex.co.uk/poweratlas/answers/biggest-coal-power-plants-in-the-world/" style="display:inline-block;margin-top:9px;font-size:13px;color:#f57c00;font-weight:600;text-decoration:none">See the full ranking → Inzonex PowerAtlas</a></div>

Frequently asked questions

Which is the biggest coal power plant?

Taean (South Korea) at ~29 Mt CO₂e/yr.

Why do coal plants emit so much?

Coal has the highest carbon intensity per unit of energy, and these are large baseload units running at high capacity factors year-round.