Bloomberg in New York – Updated on Aug 04, 2008
China, the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, is poised to lead world production of solar cells, wind power turbines and low-carbon energy technology.
The country is already the world’s largest renewable-energy producer as measured by installed generating capacity, according to a report from the Climate Group, a coalition of companies and governments that support solutions to global warming. The country is also the world’s top manufacturer of solar cells and will be the leading exporter of wind turbines by next year.
The nation’s position as a renewable-energy consumer and manufacturer runs counter to its ranking as one of the world’s biggest polluters and the country’s rapid expansion of coal-fired power generation. About 75 per cent of mainland electricity came from coal, said Wu Changhua, the China director for the Climate Group.
“They have to do clean energy because they can’t just do more and more dirty energy,” said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of London-based New Energy Finance, which provides research to clean-energy investors. “We’re seeing China as being a Number 1, 2 or 3 player in lots of different sectors in this industry.”
The mainland was closing older coal-fired power plants and replacing them with more efficient coal generators, Ms Wu said. While the nation would continue to rely on coal to fuel its rapid economic growth, state officials understood the need to move to clean energy, she said.
The government wants to reduce the amount of energy the country uses to produce each unit of economic output by 20 per cent in two years and has told its 1,000 largest energy-consuming companies to cut their power consumption even more, according to the report.
Meanwhile, the government is imposing emergency traffic and industrial production restrictions to reduce pollution during this month’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
About 16 per cent of mainland electricity came from renewable sources in 2006, led by the world’s largest number of hydroelectric generators, according to the report. The nation’s goal is to increase the proportion of renewable electricity to 23 per cent by 2020.
China invested more than US$12 billion in renewable energy last year, second only to Germany.
The nation needed to invest a further US$398 billion to reach its 2020 renewable energy goals, an average of US$33 billion a year, the report said.
“The system in China compared to many other countries seems to be more effective,” Ms Wu said. “Basically, if the top leadership in Beijing decides to drive this kind of effort, they really get things done.”