Beijing, China (GLOBE-Net) - China plans to invest 45.6 billion yuan (Cdn. $6.8 billion) to more than triple its wind power generation capacity by 2010, an industry official says. Also this week, the Chinese government announced that it will spend a further 1.5 trillion yuan (Cdn. $226 billion) to make existing buildings more energy efficient by 2020, and will strengthen efficiency standards for new construction.

According to media reports, Li Junfeng, secretary-general of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association, says that the government has raised its wind power target to 8,000 megawatts by 2010 from 5,000. Last year, China added 1,000 MW of capacity to reach a total of 2,300 of installed wind power.

“The government’s preferential policies and companies’ willingness will enable us to exceed the original target,” said Li, reports Bloomberg.

A recent report projects that China will become the world’s largest wind power producer by 2020, as all signs point towards a massive expansion of renewable energy in the country.

China plans to invest heavily to increase the use of renewables and reduce its growing economy’s reliance on coal and oil; China is the world’s second largest consumer of oil and the largest consumer of coal.

A new coal plant large enough to power a North American city of 2.5 million people opens nearly every week in the country, often without modern technologies which can improve efficiency and reduce emissions. China is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2015, and the country is paying the price of rising toxic emissions with increased health problems in cities.

In response, the country has targeted a huge increase in wind power and will also subsidize solar power, biodiesel, and ethanol projects.

The 2006 Annual Report on China’s New Energy Industry, produced by consulting firm Bilin International, notes a Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) projection that China will reach 15,000 megawatts of wind power capacity by 2020, making it the world’s largest wind energy producer. The report says that of the country’s estimated 3.2 million kilowatts of wind power potential, around 1 million megawatts could be developed.

China has set up more than sixty wind power farms around the country, developed key technologies and trained personnel specialized in designing and operating wind power farms, making the country well prepared to large-scale development of the industry, the report notes.

During the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010), China will set up about 30 large wind power projects of 100 MW each at regions with abundant wind power resources, such as eastern coastal areas, Hebei Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China.

In terms of small wind power projects, China has already developed the largest market in the world. By the end of 2005, China had installed 320,000 small wind turbine generators to supply power to residents in remote areas with a total capacity of 65,000 kw, according to the report.

$200B for energy efficiency

Also this week, China’s Vice Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing said that the country could save 350 million tonnes of coal in the next fifteen years if existing buildings were made more energy efficiency and new construction met stricter standards. Environmental degradation and energy waste are an obstacle to China’s economic growth, he noted.

Already, China has failed to meet energy efficiency targets in previous government plans. To address this, Qiu said that investment would be made in upgrading existing buildings, but that the top priority would be to set stricter efficiency standards for new construction. Around 10 percent of new construction projects violated existing standards, he added. The tighter standards reduce allowable energy consumption of heating, cooling and lighting by up to 65 percent.

Half of the world’s buildings constructed between now and 2020 are expected to be in China. Construction consumes over one quarter of China’s energy supply.

Buildings account for over 40 percent of energy use in developed countries and almost one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. Efficient technologies can drastically cut that consumption, and the application of renewable energy technologies can make some buildings net energy providers.

Energy efficiency has been dubbed “the biggest fuel” available to the world, and analysis by the International Energy Agency has shown that improved energy efficiency using today’s technologies can reduce expected growth in electricity demand by half, and cut the need for added generation capacity by one-third.