China is drafting a stimulus package to more than double the nation's 2020 output of alternative energy from targets set in 2007, said an industry official.
The plan to boost investments in the production of fuel from sources including hydro, wind and solar will be announced this year, Shi Dinghuan, the chief director of China Renewable Energy Society, said yesterday at a conference in Shanghai.
China has said it plans to invest 2 trillion yuan in its alternative energy industry from 2006 through 2020 as the world's second-biggest energy consumer looks to replace usage of coal and oil with cleaner-burning fuels. The Asian nation could pass Europe, Japan and the US to become the world's biggest renewable energy consumer by 2010, according to Washington-based researcher WorldWatch Institute.
The Chinese Government in 2007 targeted 1.8 million kilowatts of solar power capacity, 300 million kilowatts of hydropower, 30 million kilowatts of wind power and 30 million kilowatts of biomass power by 2020. It set a goal for renewable energy to account for 15 percent of China's total use.
The nation's solar power capacity may rise to 10 million kilowatts by 2020, helped by government subsidy, Wang Zhongying, the renewable energy development director at the research center of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at the same conference.
