China to have world's second biggest power capacity

Dec 25, 2009 - Xinhua

China's electricity generation capacity will increase to 860 million kilowatts at the end of this year, the second largest after the United States, energy official said on Friday.

The nation's power grids coverage has become the world's largest with fast expansion of ultra-high voltage network. New energy such as nuclear and wind power played an increasingly important role, said Zhang Guobao, head of the National Administration of Energy.

At the end of July, China overtook the United States to have the world's largest network with a total length of 375,000 kilometers.

The nation also had 11 nuclear reactors, and approved for the construction of another 14. Some 24 are under construction, Zhang said at a national meeting held by the China Electricity Council.

The annual wind power generation has doubled for three years to 20 million kilowatts by the end of this year after eight million was added in 2009, he said.

Also at the meeting, delegates of power producers and regulators called for efforts to speed up clean energy development to promote energy saving and emission cut.

Currently, more than 70 percent of the nation's electricity is coal-fired. The government has pledged to increase the capacity of new energy to 15 percent of the total by 2020.