Power firm has failed to comply with order to shut inefficient generators
Datang International Power Generation, a listed unit of one of China's largest state-owned power groups, faces a regulatory ban on all of its proposed power projects as it announced a major expansion in a plant in Inner Mongolia.
The nation's environment watchdog State Environmental Protection Administration said it had stopped approving all of the company's proposed power projects, after it failed to comply with its order to close 250 megawatts of small and inefficient generators.
The generators, located in Tangshan, Hebei province, were ordered by the watchdog in October to be closed by the end of last year.
'Before this is rectified, all of Datang International's new projects will not get SEPA's approvals,' the watchdog said. '[We] recommend that relevant people be held responsible.' It did not elaborate.
Datang is among 89 power producers, steel and non-ferrous metals smelters and other polluters named and shamed by the watchdog for building plants without getting its approval and failing to shut down old facilities as ordered.
Datang is the only Hong Kong-listed power company to face such a ban, although unlisted China Guodian Group and the parent companies of Huadian Power International, Huaneng Power International were also punished for failing to close old plants and install pollution control equipment.