China announces massive boost in solar energy target to help fight pollution
China will expand plans to ease its air pollution problems this year by installing green energy projects that add almost 2½ times as much solar capacity as the United States added last year.
China will expand plans to ease its air pollution problems this year by installing green energy projects that add almost 2½ times as much solar capacity as the United States added last year.
The world's biggest emitter of carbon aimed to install as much as 17.8 gigawatts of solar projects this year, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced yesterday.
The NEA previously estimated that 15GW would be added this year, said a person who asked not to be named, citing confidentiality requirements.
The nation of almost 1.4 billion people wanted to more than triple its solar power capacity to 100GW by 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission said in November.
China added as much as 12GW of solar power in 2014, narrowly missing the target it had set for the year, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) said.
The US added 7.3GW of solar capacity for the year, BNEF's data showed.
"This reflects China's stronger efforts to reduce emissions," said Peng Peng, a Beijing-based analyst from the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.
China is using more solar power as part of its plans to cap emissions in the next 15 years.
President Xi Jinping has pledged an "iron hand" to protect the environment after a November pact with US President Barack Obama to increase China's share of non-fossil fuel in its total energy use to 20 per cent by 2030.
China's emissions of carbon dioxide fell last year for the first time in more than a decade, helping stall global production of climate-warming gases.
Total carbon emissions in the world's second-biggest economy dropped 2 per cent last year from the previous year, the first decline since 2001, said a BNEF estimate based on data from China's National Bureau of Statistics.
The NEA has asked local departments in 26 regions of the country to submit plans by the end of next month detailing new solar projects for this year.
Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing and has the nation's worst air pollution, was likely to receive the most new solar projects this year with allocations of 1.2GW of installations, the NEA said.
Jiangsu , Zhejiang , Anhui , Qinghai and Ningxia have all been given 1GW, according to the document.
China's more ambitious goal may attract as much as 21 billion yuan (HK$26 billion) of additional investment to solar projects compared with the earlier plan, BNEF estimated.
"This will benefit equipment suppliers that focus on the domestic market," said Yin Lei, a Shenzhen-based analyst at China Merchants Securities.
Yin expected the new target to spur installations of smaller solar projects that the nation has been promoting since 2013.
