China to spend US$361 bn on renewable power sources by 2020
China aims to spend 2.5 trillion yuan (US$361 billion) on renewable energy sources as wind and solar power as it continues its shift from dirty coal power towards cleaner power generation, the country’s energy agency said.
China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has laid out its plan to dominate one of the world’s fastest-growing industries and develop the nation’s energy sector during the five-year 2016 to 2020 period. The plans come just at a time when the US is set to head the opposite direction as US President-elect Donald Trump, a climate change doubter, prepares to take over the country’s highest office.
According to NEA, installed renewable power capacity in the country including wind, hydro, solar and nuclear power will contribute to about half of new electricity generation by 2020. The investment will also create more than 13 million jobs in the sector.
More details on where the funds, which equate to about US$72 billion each year, would be spent were not disclosed.
Still, the investment reflects Beijing’s continued focus on curbing the use of fossil fuels, which have fostered the country’s economic growth over the past decade, as it ramps up its war on pollution.
Last month, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s economic planner, said in its own five-year plan, that solar power will receive 1 trillion yuan of spending, as the country seeks to boost capacity by five times. That’s equivalent to about 1,000 major solar power plants, according to experts’ estimates.
Some 700 billion yuan will go towards wind farms, 500 billion to hydro power with tidal and geothermal getting the rest, the NDRC said.
The NEA also said the investment into renewable power will curb the growth of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and reduce the amount of soot that in recent days has blanketed Beijing and other Chinese cities in a noxious cloud of smog. A decade ago, China surpassed the US as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses, and now discharges about twice as much.
The announcement also comes at a time when costs in the wind and solar industries are plummeting. The cost of building large-scale solar plants has dropped by as much as 40% since 2010, and China became the world’s top solar generator last year.
Greenpeace estimates that China installed an average of more than one wind turbine every hour of every day in 2015, and covered the equivalent of one soccer field every hour with solar panels. China may meet its 2020 goals for solar installation by 2018, said Lauri Myllyvirta, a research analyst at Greenpeace, who is based in Beijing.
However, despite the impressive numbers, the NEA repeated in its statement that renewables will still only account for just 15% of overall energy consumption by 2020, equivalent to 580 million tons of coal, illustrating the enormity of the challenge.More than half of the nation’s installed power capacity will still be fueled by coal over the same period.
