China pushes renewable energy efforts

China is boosting the target of how much of its energy it obtains from renewable resources such as solar and wind to 15 percent by 2020, according to a China Daily report.

China government planners said they could hit the 10 percent target by 2010. The China Daily quoted one vice minister who suggested the country might be able to hit a 20 percent target by 2020.

The new goal comes as China is also raising its projections for the amount of total annual energy it will generate by 2020 to 1,500GW, a 50 percent increase from a target level set in 2007. China had installed capacity to generate 793GW by the end of 2008, as much as two-thirds of that from coal, China Daily reported.

China's planners say the country will soon have the capacity to generate 1,000GW, the amount of energy produced in the United States reach year.

More than twenty percent of China's energy comes from hydroelectric plants. Only a small fraction comes from other sources such as nuclear (two percent). China had less than 100MW of solar energy generators attached to its grid at the end of 2008, China Daily said.

- EE Times