Datong power station is a 3,120 MW coal power station in Shanxi Sheng, China. It is operated by Guodian Shanxi Branch Co Ltd. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 3.9 million homes (estimated). It ranks #149 of 6,685 China power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 2001, it is around 25 years old — relatively modern. Its modelled annual emissions are 14,070,000 t CO₂/yr (Climate TRACE), equivalent to about 3.3 million cars driven for a year. In context, coal supplies about 54.3% of China's electricity; the national grid averages 525 gCO₂/kWh (41.7% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1070449.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The public capacity above is the current source-record value. A 2026 tracker candidate lists 3,120 MW for Datong-2 power station, but it is not used as the public primary value until scope is verified (unit vs operating vs installed/project total).
Capacity claim grade: B_SCOPE_PARENT_COMPLEX - recommended action: build_parent_complex_model - confidence: not_comparable_without_scope. This follows a claim-based data model: value + scope + source + confidence, rather than silently overwriting records.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 (location L100000105025); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 3,120 MW, Datong power station is well above the median coal plant in China (700 MW). Technically it is described as subcritical. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
This facility's annual emissions are roughly equivalent to:
Equivalencies via US EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies; modelled emissions from Climate TRACE.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Guodian Shanxi Branch Co Ltd.
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a cold semi-arid steppe climate (Köppen BSk) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 40.0°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
Heating degree-days here run 69% above the median power plant in this dataset — a proxy for how much extra energy heated equipment must replace through its surfaces in winter.
Climate heat-demand index: 86/100 — this site sits in the top third of the power plants we cover by heating degree-days.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in a benign, low-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C1 — Very low), with dust abrasion the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #79 largest coal power plant of 1907 in China by capacity.
China has 1907 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 1,882,493 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 40.0279, 113.2933 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Datong power station is a 3,120 MW source-record coal power plant in Shanxi Sheng, China, commissioned in 2001.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 3,904,457 homes (estimated).
Datong power station is operated by Guodian Shanxi Branch Co Ltd.
Datong power station has modelled emissions of about 14,070,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Climate TRACE).
