According to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute, entitled Powering China's Development: The Role of Renewable Energy, China could attain or even exceed its objective of producing 15% of its energy requirements in 2020 from renewable sources, compared with 8% at present. By 2050, the renewable share could reach 30 %. The country is advancing by leaps and bounds in terms of wind energy, solar photovoltaic & water heating installations, energy from the biomass and the development of bio-fuels.
China is preparing a change in its energy consumption pattern …
With more than a billion inhabitants, China is currently one of the most dynamic of the emerging countries. Until recently essentially agricultural, the country is today being transformed into an industrial economy, triggering major migration towards the cities and rapid growth in consumption.
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In 2007, a year-long enquiry, aimed at studying public awareness of environmental matters, was conducted jointly by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Environment Awareness Program. Carried out on a sample of 3000 people, aged from 15 to 69 and living in 20 different provinces and municipalities, the enquiry revealed that the environment is the 4th most important concern of the Chinese public, after medical care, employment and the gap between high and low income levels.
For more information, you will find here an extract from the Report
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This strong economic expansion is resulting in an ever-increasing demand for energy. Faced with planet-wide environmental issues and mindful of the need to diversify its energy resources, China is turning its efforts towards the development of renewable energy sources.
As a consequence, it is planning to invest some 180 billion euros in non-fossil-based energy sources by 2020, in order to cover 16% of its energy needs. If the country continues in this direction, renewable energy sources could account for more than 30% of its total energy requirements by 2050.
… and has begun to make rapid progress.
With the aim of reducing its dependence on external energy, China is demonstrating impressive dynamism in its approach to renewable energy.
Wind energy is showing the strongest growth. Installed capacity more than doubled between 2006 and 2007, reaching around 6GW at the end of 2007, whilst the objective for 2010 is 10GW. In 2007, the country boasted four significant domestic manufacturers of wind turbines, together with six subsidiaries of foreign companies implanted locally and more than 40 other companies developing prototypes and planning to launch large-scale turbines onto the market.
Similarly, in 2007, photovoltaic production capacity stood at 1500 MW, a spectacular progression compared to 2005 (350 MW). China is now one of the top 3 solar energy producing countries (biggest current project: a solar power plant in the province of Sichuan, with a capacity of 10MW, planned to come into operation at the end of 2009). Solar water heaters have also seen very rapid growth. Chinese companies are now producing solar water heaters to meet increasing demand from consumers, at a price five to eight times less than that in the United States or Europe. According to the Worldwatch Institute analysis published on 14 November 2007 (Worldwatch special report: Powering China's Development: The Role of Renewable Energy (Washington, DC, November 2007, 50 pp)), China is already the leading country in the markets for solar water heating and small-scale hydroelectricity : about 10 % of Chinese households already use the sun to heat their water.
China also has immense exploitable hydroelectric potential. Already the world leader in hydroelectric generation, the country hopes to further increase the hydroelectric share of total electricity generation to around 25 % by 2020.
Waste from Chinese agricultural complexes could produce 80 billion cubic metres of biogas per annum, way beyond the annual objective of 44 billion cubic metres fixed by the government for 2020. At the end of 2007, China had some 2.2 gigawatts (GW) of capacity for the production of energy from the biomass, principally from plants supplying both heat and energy, sugarcane waste in particular.
A place of honour for renewable energy during the Olympic Games…
Solar energy will be widely used during the Olympic Games: 90 % of the hot water consumed in the Olympic village and 80 to 90% of the lighting in the streets around the Olympic venues will be produced by solar energy.
Conscious of the necessity of preserving its environment, China hopes to succeed in the transition of its energy situation and become the world N° 1 in renewable energy. In the current year, the country has earmarked 6.86 billion dollars uniquely for financing projects linked to renewable energy.
To find out more about renewable energy, consult the encyclo
Source : http://www.actu-environnement.com |