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Shanghai Electric Power Co. Ltd. plans to terminate a project that was supposed to provide “green” energy in China’s Xinjiang region but instead discharges polluted wastewater.
In a Dec. 28 filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the company said that owing to the malfunction of an exhaust gas purification system, the operation of its Hami Xuanli Gas Power project had improperly discharged a considerable amount of wastewater containing phenol, or carbolic acid.
The state-owned utility said it had decided to shut the project and dispose of related equipment.
Hami Xuanli was started for the purpose of “utilizing the exhaust gas emitted by coal tar in an Industrial Cluster Park, and through combined gas and steam turbines to generate electricity,” according to a 2014 official introduction to the project.
The utility said that after on-site inspections in 2021, a team of external experts concluded that the purification facilities needed large-scale renovation to meet environmental requirements. However, they concluded that “it is costly, and the effect remains uncertain.”
The project’s losses will cost Shanghai Electric Power $91 million in impairment provisions, said the exchange filing, adding that apart from the $47 million impairment for Hami Xuanli Gas Power Generation Co. Ltd., there is also a $44 million impairment for another subsidiary, Luojing Gas Turbine Power Plant.
