The first phase of China's first overseas clean coal-fired power plant started operations in Singapore on Feb 27, a big step for the international expansion strategy of Huaneng Group, one of the country's top-five power generation companies.

The plant is wholly owned by the Chinese company, which invested about 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in the project.

The power plant will have a generation capacity of 160 megawatts in total when fully operating.

The company said the second phase of the project will be put into production in 2014.

This is the first and only power plant that uses coal as its major material in Singapore, according to Huaneng.