BEIJING -- China's economic planner said on Thursday that it will punish coal-fired power plants that falsely claim to have installed and be operating environmental protection equipment as a pretext for raising prices.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a statement to reiterate that coal-fired power plants must be equipped with and be operating facilities to limit sulfur, nitrates and dust in their emissions before increasing prices on the grounds of environmental protection expenses.

According to the NDRC, some plants have cheated by raising prices of their power without running their facilities to clean discharges, according to the NDRC.

The commission and the ministry vowed to step up monitoring of power plants' discharges and punish those whose discharges contain pollutants above limits.

Now power plants with environmental protection equipment can raise their power prices by 0.015 yuan per kilowatt-hour for desulfidation, 0.01 yuan for denitration and 0.002 yuan for dust elimination.

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