By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2009-09-01 05:30
Massive investments in wind and solar energy projects
China is well on track to surpass the US as the world’s largest market for wind turbines. While the European Union is struggling to reach its renewable energy targets, China is surpassing its own targets with ease. At the beginning of 2008, the target of the Chinese government was to have 5,000 MW of wind power installed by the end of 2010. Only a few months after proclaiming this figure, it was doubled to 10,000 MW. As of today, it looks like China is going to have 30,000 MW of wind power installed by the end of next year.
A favourable regulatory climate
The Chinese government has mandated that electricity companies must generate 8% of their power from renewable resources by 2020. Combine this figure with the enormous, steep, and ever expanding energy consumption in the country, and you realise that only a development of renewable energy at an up-to-now unseen scale will accomplish such a goal.
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By HDK / Published on Thu, 2009-05-28 09:35
Jiang Lin, Nan Zhou, Mark Levine, and David Fridley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Wed, 2008-10-29 10:00
Year: 2008
Policy Status: Planned
As part of a plan to
phase out incandescent lighting, the Ministry of Finance announced the first stage of the plan, to
subsidise 50 million low-energy bulbs onto the market.
Subsidies will be
indirect, with efficient bulbs sold to consumers at a
discount and companies reimbursed by the government for the shortfall. Individual shoppers will pay half of the price agreed by manufacturers and the government, while businesses will pay just 30 percent of that price. Preference will also be given to the most efficient bulbs for government procurement.
The government has already named 13 companies, including the Zhejiang Sunshine Group, to produce the first batch of light bulbs.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Mon, 2008-10-27 10:00
Year: 2007
Policy Status: In force
The government of the People's Republic of China released the
National Climate Change Programme in July 2007.
This policy paper outlines the impacts that China faces from climate change. It also sets out a
strategy to address climate change and sustainable development, including by way of mitigation actions that China envisages and has already adopted.
These include economic restructuring, energy efficiency improvement, vehicle emission standards, participation in international R&D programmes, development and utilisation of hydropower and other renewable energy, ecological restoration and protection, and well family planning, among others. Many of these policies are from the eleventh five year plan, which runs from 2006 to 2011.
The National Climate Change Programme also indicates challenges in lowering the country
CO2 intensity, given its existing resources (abundant coal), the resulting lock-in of coal-based energy infrastructure, limited access to more efficient technologies and limited finance.
A key to the country's contribution to lower greenhouse gases is its official energy efficiency objective of reducing energy
consumption per unit of GDP by 20% by 2010 and of quadrupling GDP between 2000 and 2020 while only doubling energy use. In addition to this general goal, the government is to take measures to close small, less efficient industrial facilities in sectors including iron and steel, cement, aluminium, copper, glass or ceramics.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Sat, 2008-10-25 09:00
Year: 2006
Policy Status: In force
Within the 11th Five Year Period (2006 - 2010), the Chinese government has mandated the efficient use of exhaust, pressure and heat from mining and industrial processes.
Iron and steel enterprises will:
- apply coke dry quenching (CDQ) and power generation through the pressure difference in blast furnace, renovate all blast furnace gas power generation and implement converter gas recovery to save 2.66 million tons of standard coal
- install each year 30 sets of medium-and-low-temperature exhaust-heat power generation equipment in concrete production lines with a daily yield of 2,000 tons
- exploit ground coalbed gas (CBG), extracting and draining gas in ground mined-out areas, discarded mines and below the grand surface, to realize an annual gas application of one billion cubic meters, equivalent to saving 1.35 million tons of standard coal.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Thu, 2008-10-23 09:00
Year: 2006
Policy Status: In force
Aiming to reduce electricity consumption by 29 billion kilowatt-hours over the 11th Five-Year Period, China has mandated the:
- promotion of high-efficiency lighting systems and three-primary-color phosphorous in public facilities, hotels, shopping centers, office buildings, and sports venues
- the renovation of production and assembly lines of high-efficiency electronic appliances.
In 2004, lighting required 13% of China's total power. As stated by the National Development and Reform Commission, 70 to 80%t of power can be saved by replacing ordinary incandescent lamps with high-efficiency energy-saving fluorescent lamps and 20 to 30 percent can be saved by replacing traditional electromagnetic ballasts with electronic ballasts. In traffic lights, 90 percent of power used can be saved by replacing incandescent lamps with light emitting diodes (LEDs).
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Thu, 2008-10-23 09:00
Year: 2006
Policy Status: In force
Within its 11th Five-Year Period, China plans to reduce residential and public buildings' energy consumption by 50%, saving 50 million tons of standard coal. The federal plan for energy conservation in buildings formally mandates:
- the quick technical reform of heat-supply systems nation-wide
- renewed efforts to promoting building energy efficiency technology and related products
- renovation of existing buildings in the nation's cold northern regions, with particular focus on hotels.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Tue, 2008-10-21 00:00
Year: 2006
Policy Status: In force
To improve the energy efficiency of government institutions during the 11th Five-Year Period, China required several reforms of government operation:
- During reconstruction of government buildings - including heating, air-conditioning and lighting systems - 20 percent of the total construction area must meet the national building energy efficiency standard.
- Government procurement must promote high-efficiency products and publish their list.
- Government vehicle purchases must focus on low-oil-consuming vehicles.
With these mandates, the Chinese state aims to save energy by 10% per unit construction area and per capita by 2010, relative to the baseline year of 2002.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Sun, 2008-10-19 09:00
Year: 2006
Policy Status: In force
State Council Office Notice on the Carrying Out of Resource Conservation Activities and the “Energy Conservation Law of the People’s Republic of China” and the “Government Procurement Law of the People’s Republic of China”, The Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission published a formal list of energy efficient products for public procurement. Certified by a Chinese certification organization, the list of products will be issued as the “List of Energy Efficient Products for Government Procurement”, or simply the “Energy Efficiency List.”
The Energy Efficiency List:
- Refrigerators
- Room Air Conditioners
- Double Capped Fluorescents for General Service Lighting
- Self-ballasted Fluorescents for General Service Lighting
- Televisions
- Computers
- Printers
- Toilets
- Faucets
When procuring products from a category appearing on the Energy Efficiency List, federal, state and municipal agents must give priority to the energy efficient products on the Energy Efficiency List. In government procurement activities, the procurement officer must make explicit the assessment standards for product energy efficiency requirements, conditions for product qualification, and priority of energy efficiency procurement in all tender documents (including negotiation documents and price request documents).
Procurement officers or their procurement agent organizations who do not follow such requirements risk legal recourse and the Ministry of Finance may refuse to pay the procurement amount.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Fri, 2008-10-17 09:00
Year 2006
Policy Status In force
Within the
11th Five-Year Period, China's strategic plan for
energy efficient industrial processes involves equipment renovation and the design and implementation of process optimization and management measures. Targetting the
metallurgical industry,
petrochemical industry, and
chemical industry, the Chinese state aims to
improve energy efficiency and industrial competitiveness to "the highest level or close to the world's front-runners."
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Wed, 2008-10-15 09:00
Year: 2006
Policy Status: In force
China's programme to reduce the energy consumption of its 1000 largest industrial consumers covers 1008 enterprises from the following sectors:
- energy production
- textile
- iron and steel
- chemical industry
- construction materials
- coal
- petroleum and petrochemical
- non-ferrous metal
- paper
In 2004, this group accounted for more than 33% of China's total energy demand and 47% of the total energy consumption of Chinese industry.
Five government agencies lead the Top-1000 programme:
The Department of Environment and Resources - NDRC is responsible for the promotion of energy conservation in China.
The National Bureau of Statistics has the role of collecting and managing statistical information of enterprises in China.
State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission manages major state owned enterprises in Chinamany of which figure in the Top 1000.
The Office of National Energy Leading Group and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine are also involved.
Beyond the five central governmental agencies, provincial governments (provincial Development and Reform Commission or Economic and Trade Commission) will work data collection, monitoring and guiding on enterprises, etc.
Sector associations will play key roles in the creation of indicator and evaluation system. They will also play important roles in information collection and disclosure, training, and others.
An information system and website for the Top-1000 Programme will be established by the National Bureau of Statistics. This website will link with NDRC website and the websites of these enterprises. NBS will be responsible for the tracing, statistics and auditing of the energy utilization status of these enterprises.
On April of every year, NDRC and NBS will jointly release the energy utilization information of these enterprises, as well as the advanced levels of domestic and foreign enterprises of the last year.
The responsibilities of industry associations and energy conservation centers include:
- formulate and assist in the implementation of the indicator and evaluation system for industry energy utilization and conservation, and conduct evaluation of enterprise energy usage;
- collect information concerning the advanced levels of energy consumption of the domestic and western enterprises, and establish relevant database
- provide enterprises with information and technical assistance
- provide training for enterprises
Role of Top 1000 enterprises are:
- establish energy conservation organization, formulate energy efficiency goals
- establish energy use reporting system
- conduct energy auditing
- formulate energy conservation plan
- invest in energy efficiency improvements
- adopt energy conservation incentives, training
All participating enterprises are asked to formulate and implement energy conservation plans.
Clear targets for energy conservation should be established in the Plan. Energy conservation measures should be provided. Annual implementation plan should be involved.
The Plan must be reviewed by provincial DRC or ETC.
Governments at different levels should provide enterprise with economic incentives, including, for example a list of Energy Conservation Products to receive tax incentives.
These incentives will be applied combined with the current energy conservation plans and other measures.
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By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Tue, 2008-09-23 16:32
The EU-Asia Power Quality Initiative (APQI) was launched on September 19 in Beijing. As a project implemented by the International Copper Association (China) and co-funded by the European Commission's Asia-Invest program, APQI is geared to help China improve quality management for its electric power in order to facilitate energy saving, emission reduction, as well as companies' competitiveness. The project will also cover other Asian countries, including India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, as well as the Philippines.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-08-14 05:30
Driving rural development
The Beijing Olympic Games have certainly made us all aware of China’s ability to tackle massive projects. When it comes to generating hydroelectricity, the country has proven itself equally successful with the construction of the much-contested Three Gorges Dam. But hydroelectric generation in China is not limited only to such huge scale projects. In recent years, the country has become one of the most successful adopters of small hydroelectric facilities (plants up to 25 MW) as a means of achieving carbon emission free rural development.
The total installed capacity of small hydroelectric plants in China is estimated at approximately 50,000 MW and growing at about 6,000 MW annually.
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By Angelo Baggini / Published on Sun, 2008-07-20 09:00
Year: 2006
Policy Status: In force
Participating in the Market Transformation Programme, the Chinese and UK governments aim to harmonise and converge product performance specifications at a global level, fostering the development of efficient products at a lower cost.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Mon, 2008-04-28 10:17
President Barroso announced an interesting shift in the Chinese attitude to the post-Kyoto agreement when visiting Beijing last week. The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is said to have indicated that China could participate fully in an international agreement provided that the old industrialised nations promised to reduce their emission until 2020 and a financial mechanism for technology transfer is established.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-01-24 08:30
Energy Efficiency (EE) efforts have fallen off
The International Energy Agency (IEA) compiled an interesting graph, based on information about 10 European countries plus the U.S., Canada, New Zealand and Japan. It can be found on the Executive Summary of the book 'Energy Use in the New Millennium: Trends in the IEA countries', published on the IEA Web site. The graph shows the annual growth of energy consumption (actual energy use) and how much energy savings have contributed to restricting this growth (energy efficiency improvements). The period from 1973 to 1990 is compared with the period from 1990 to 2004.
The graph shows that the actual growth in energy use has increased. It also shows that energy efficiency improvements have fallen off considerably. In fact, the hypothetical growth of energy use without energy efficiency improvements was larger in the former period than in recent years.
Does this mean that energy efficiency as an energy source is slowly running dry? Not according to the IEA. They still see significant scope in those countries for adopting more cost-effective energy-efficient technologies in buildings, industry, and transport. The IEA concludes in this study that the oil price shocks in the 1970s did considerably more to control growth in energy demand than climate policies implemented since the 1990s. However they do add the consideration that the study does not fully reflect the impact of many policies recently initiated.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Mon, 2007-10-29 08:00
The Chinese leadership confirms, in the recent party-congress, its intention to change the economy for the better, not only in terms of volume, but also in terms of environmental quality. The question is, however, whether it will work, or if they have already passed some critical crossroads from which there is no turning back.
The energy situation is bad, but water pollution might be worse
The Magazine 'Foreign Affairs' has a broad survey in their latest edition that shows the state in several sectors and aspects, including water supply, deforestation, urbanization, air quality etc. The survey covers more aspects than we normally see in the reporting on China. It is still not comprehensive, but rather a gathering of snapshots. As such, it still gives more facets to the overall understanding on both why the leadership is so concerned and where the present development could lead.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Fri, 2007-09-07 07:00
The Chinese Electricity Regulatory Commission, SERC, is introducing feed-in tariffs for renewable (green) energy with the target of having 6% green electricity by 2010 and 8% by 2020. Corresponding figures for the total primary energy in the country are 10% and 16%. Keep in mind that these are growing percentages of a fast-growing absolute production, so the targets are challenging.
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