Frequently Asked Questions

Governmental policy institutions include government bodies, such as government ministries or departments, as well as government-owned institutions with explicit policy objectives, such as multilateral development banks (MDBs) and export credit and insurance agencies (ECAs)

Government-owned commercial institutions include institutions that are majority owned (50%+) by a government body, but that operate as commercial business entities. These institutions are commonly called state-owned enterprises, and can either be financial institutions, such as government-owned banks, or business-oriented institutions, such as infrastructure or utility companies. 

Privately-owned commercial institutions include institutions owned by large institutional shareholders, through publicly issued stocks, or through other corporate methods. They are not majority government-owned.

The financing status can either be “closed” or “ongoing.” Financing closed means that both a financing agreement was signed and that the funds are available for withdrawal. Note that the signing of an agreement alone does not necessarily mean a financing deal is closed. We use the beginning of construction on a power station as a proxy when information on a financial close date is unavailable. The data does not contain comprehensive coverage of proposed financing deals that were subsequently canceled.

For projects in which the country providing the financing is confirmed but the specific financing institution is not, the financing institution is listed as “To Be Determined (TBD)” and the institution type is listed as “Unknown”.

In some rare instances, financial amounts for power projects are disclosed, but the specific institutions providing funding are not named. In these cases, country and institution type are marked “Unknown” and the institution type is also listed as “Unknown”. Power plants for which financing information is not available are not shown on the map.

All of the coal plant and financing information on the map is described and cited on GEM.wiki and available in the downloadable dataset.

Locations are exact for the majority of projects. Proposed coal plants that do not have an exact project site will have approximate locations. You can check the underlying GEM.wiki page to see the accuracy of the coordinates for an individual project.

Orange circles indicate that a country has financial institutions that have provided funding for coal-fired power. Blue circles indicate that a country has coal-fired power stations that have received funding, either domestic or international. The size of the circles indicates the amount of support provided, measured in either plant capacity (megawatts) or amount funded (US dollars).

Lines show the relationship between the country in which financial institutions are based (marked in orange) and the country where the plant will be built (marked in blue).

On the map, to view a list of all institutions in a country that have funded coal-fired power stations, first select a source country, either by clicking an orange circle or by searching for it using the search bar. Then, a list of financiers will appear in the left pane. You can click on a specific institution to see all of the projects it has funded.

On the map, to view a list of the power stations within a country for which financing information is available, first select a recipient country, either by clicking a blue circle on the map or by searching for it using the search bar. The power stations will appear as smaller blue circles on the map, and a list will display in the left pane. Clicking a specific power station, either on the map or on the list, will show more detailed information for that power station.

If you cannot distinguish source and recipient financing for a country and want to do so, you can either click on the country name in the table on the left, or type the country name in the search bar at the top of the page to isolate the data.

This tab allows you to filter the data by the type of institution that has provided funding for a coal-fired power station. Governmental or policy institutions are either government entities or government-controlled entities with explicit policy objectives, such as multilateral development banks. Government-owned commercial institutions are majority (50%+) owned by governments, but operate as commercial businesses. These types of institutions are commonly called state-owned enterprises. Privately-owned commercial institutions are owned by private individuals, such as large private stakeholders or through public stock holdings.

This tab allows you to filter the data by the source and recipient country. If an entity based in a country finances coal-fired power within that same country, the financing is considered domestic. Financing that flows from one country to another is considered international.

The tracker only shows plants for which information on project financing is available and only includes funding specifically earmarked for coal-fired power projects since 2010. As such, it does not include general corporate financing, such as loans given to companies operating in the coal-fired power sector, or funding for Chinese coal-fired power stations since the information is currently unavailable.

Please fill out an error report form here.

The tracker was designed and produced by Global Energy Monitor. 

The following people contributed to finance research: Jelena Babajeva, Flora Champenois, Russell Gray, Lucy Hummer, Alex Hurley, Ryan Driskell Tate, and Christine Shearer. Web/GIS programming was done by Tom Allnutt and Tim Sinnott (GreenInfo Network). The project manager is Alex Hurley.

Please refer to the Download Data page for citation guidance.