The heat power system of the Siberian Federal District is almost coal-based: energy generation at coal-fired TPPs makes up 87.2%. But due to low reactivity of coals fed to the pulverized coal boilers, expensive high-reactive fuel oil is used to ignite and light the pulverized coal flame, which is a technological and economic problem. To increase the energy efficiency of flame burning of coal, an increase in their reactivity due to mechanochemical activation is considered using the technology developed at IT SB RAS. For several different coals, experimental studies on burning were carried out at a 5 MW pilot setup using mechanochemical activation of coal. These studies showed reliable ignition and stable access to the autothermal coal combustion, which indicates an increase in coal reactivity and the ability to replace fuel oil with coal.