Xuanwei power station is a 1,800 MW coal power station in Yunnan, China. It is operated by China Guodian Group Corporation. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 2.3 million homes (estimated). It ranks #456 of 6,685 China power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 2003, it is around 23 years old — relatively modern. Its modelled annual emissions are 1,842,400 t CO₂/yr (Climate TRACE), equivalent to about 429k 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 WRI1070454.
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 600 MW for Xuanwei 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: A3_MAJOR_REVIEW_SCOPE_STATUS - recommended action: manual_scope_status_check - confidence: low_until_scope_verified. This follows a claim-based data model: value + scope + source + confidence, rather than silently overwriting records.
The capacity and fuel fields on this page are source-record values from the upstream open dataset. They are useful for identification and ranking, but they have not been upgraded to a 2026 registry/GEM-location verified value.
capacity: WRI Global Power Plant Database source-record (legacy); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 1,800 MW, Xuanwei 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 China Guodian Group Corporation. All plants by this company →
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a subtropical highland climate (Köppen Cwb) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 26.2°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 24% below 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: 41/100 — this site sits in the mid 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 mild atmospheric environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C2 — Low), with humidity / wetness 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 #333 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 26.1872, 104.1106 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Xuanwei power station is a 1,800 MW source-record coal power plant in Yunnan, China, commissioned in 2003.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 2,252,571 homes (estimated).
Xuanwei power station is operated by China Guodian Group Corporation.
Xuanwei power station has modelled emissions of about 1,842,400 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Climate TRACE).
