•A cost minimization coal-power planning of China under three scenarios is established.•Eight types of coal-fired generators are classified into three categories.•The planning model contains contingency payments and consumption rate of service power.•The variable costs and the timing of introducing CCS technology are considered by this research.•We consider the policies of the development of coal-fired power industry by the government. National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration have launched a series of policies on closing down small coal-power units, in order to reduce energy consumption and pollutant emissions. However, it is hard to change current situation in the short term since coal is still the domain source of power generation in China. Aiming at efficiently closing down the small power units, to create a power generation planning model with minimized costs needs to take both economic and technical aspects into account. In this paper, eight types of coal-fired generators are classified into three categories: Inefficient units; Efficient units; and Low-carbon units. This paper has developed a power generation planning model under multiple constraint conditions such as coal-power demand, total installed capacity, and carbon capture etc. Also, the model involves variable costs of CCS technology and contingency payments at the same time. This paper has applied the power generation planning model into China’s coal-fired power industry research during the period from 2016 to 2030. The results show that because the coal-power demand ends up with a drop following a rise, the total costs thereby shows a same trend. During the planning period, the fuel costs and the operation and maintenance costs decrease most obviously. Given the installed capacity, compared with the increase in the number of efficient units, the number of inefficient units shows a gradual decrease. The number of low-carbon units displays a slight increase. Since low-carbon units can capture and store 90% of their carbon emissions, the total carbon emissions from coal-fired power industry have significantly been reduced in their operation year. Thus, it is imperative to develop high efficiency and low-carbon units as they will be the major contributors to the sustainable development of the coal-fired power industry.