Thermal coal refers to coal used as raw material for power. In a narrow sense, it refers to coal used in thermal power generation. Broadly speaking, any coal used to produce power for the purpose of power generation, locomotive propulsion, and boiler combustion belongs to thermal coal. Thermal coal mainly includes lignite, long flame coal, non-stick coal, lean coal, gas coal and a small amount of anthracite coal.

Thermal coal is the most important in China's energy structure, with more than 65% of thermal coal used for thermal power generation; followed by coal for building materials, accounting for about 20% of consumption, and cement uses the largest amount of coal. ; The remaining thermal coal consumption is distributed in metallurgy, chemical industry and civil use.

The requirements for calorific value, volatile content, and ash content of thermal coal are not as high as those of chemical coal (such as coking coal used for steelmaking). However, considering the economic benefits of power technology, power coal should also have certain quality requirements.

The quality requirements for thermal coal are lower than for any other coal. For example, coal gangue with a low calorific value greater than 4186.8kJ/kg can be used as fuel for boiling boilers. However, considering the economic benefits of power technology, power coal should also have certain quality requirements. The first is the calorific value, and the second is the level of ash melting point and the difficulty of slagging. When burning pulverized coal boilers, the grindability coefficient also needs to be considered. For chain boiler fuel, it is necessary to pay attention to indicators such as the lump content of coal. Power coal is also divided into coal for ships, coal for locomotives and coal for power generation, etc., and their requirements for coal quality are also different.