According to the 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015) for the renewable energy industry recently released by the National Energy Administration, China is targeting the development of non fossil energy including wind power, solar power, biomass energy, solar energy and thermal and nuclear power equivalent to 480 million tonnes of standard coal by the end of 2015.
Meanwhile, China is to launch quota and trading systems to ensure the effective investment, grid connection, transmission and utilization of the electricity generated from renewable energy sources. Some of the related sectors, particularly power equipment manufacturing for renewable energy, would be boosted by the development plan.
China to give greater shape to renewable energy industry under the development plan, China's wind power installed capacity is to reach 100 GW by the end of 2015 with annual electricity output of 190 billion KWH, while solar power installed capacity is likely to hit 15 GW with annual electricity output of 20 billion KWH.
Industry observers noted that the planned target revealed the government's further commitment to support the development of renewable energy industry, thus lifting the prospects for the further development of those sub-industries listed in the plan.
For the solar photovoltaic sector where most of the Chinese majors have suffered substantial losses, particularly in the Q3 of 2011, China is to further refine favorable policies as well as regulations to give greater support to the industrial chain from upstream to downstream.
In the short term, China will further develop solar technology and demonstration projects to meet the specific needs of some regions in the west China that are rich in resources. Meanwhile, China is planning to implement more policies favoring solar PV power generation and to promote the development of distributed solar PV power generation during 2011 to 2015.
According to the five year plan, for wind power industry, China is to tighten up control upon wind power development, to raise technological and quality standards as access thresholds into wind power industry and to develop wind power projects according to schedule.
As for hydropower, with some 200 GW of hydropower under development in 2010, greater efforts are to be made to improve water resource planning and environmental protection issues around the construction of hydropower projects during 2011 to 2015.
Meanwhile, China will also put more efforts into biomass energy development in order to reduce the uses of traditional energy sources, especially liquid fuels which are usually regarded as higher carbon emission way of energy consumption.
Mr Cui Rongqiang director of the Solar Energy Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University said that the increased power generation target set for each type of renewable energy and the updated regulations will help China's renewable energy industry, particularly solar power and wind power, to rebalance from the overcapacity achieved during 2006 to 2010 towards a more rational growth that focuses more on industrial structure as well as product quality in 2011 to 2015.
Mr Shi Lishan deputy director of the New and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration said that China to implement power quota system China will continue to formulate and polish policies in a bid to break bottlenecks of the renewable energy development. In particular, the NEA is mulling over launching quota and trading systems for renewable energy such as wind power and solar power to solve the problems of grid connection that have been a headache for years.
