ADB will provide a 1.25-million-U.S.-dollar technical assistance to fund the bulk of the 1.55-million-U.S.-dollar project in northern Chinese city of Tianjin and the rest of fund will come from the Chinese government, ADB said.

ADB's technical assistance will be sourced from the Climate Change Fund and technical assistance special fund.

The technical assistance will produce a comprehensive road map for carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects, as well as policies, legal and regulatory frameworks to promote CCS use. It will also identify priority demonstration projects and their financing needs, as well as undertake capacity assessment and comprehensive capacity development in critical areas of CCS demonstration.

The CCS application on high-efficiency coal-fired power plants allows the capture and permanent storage of almost all of the carbon dioxide emissions. CCS application is particularly suited to the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant, which turns coal into synthetic gas to power gas turbines. The impurities from synthetic gas, including carbon dioxide, can be removed or captured before its combustion, which allows low-cost capture from a power plant.

The technical assistance supports China's plan to develop its first IGCC demonstration power plant in Tianjin, which is lined up for possible ADB financing under the Country Programming Mission (2009-2011).

"CCS is in its early stage of development globally, and demonstrations projects need to be undertaken," said Ashok Bhargava, senior energy specialist of ADB's East Asia Department. "The full benefit of such a technology cannot be achieved unless it is used in major coal-based developing economies such as India and China."

China is the world's second-largest energy consumer after the United States and has the fastest growing energy sector globally in terms of consumption and generation. As of 2007, nearly 83 percent of the country's total generation came from burning coal.