WB offers loan to renewable energy in China (Xinhua) Updated: 2006-02-09 09:02
The World Bank has approved an US$86.33 million loan to scale up China's use
of renewable energy as the country's demand for power increases, the bank said
Wednesday.
The World Bank's Board of Executive Directors approved the follow-up project
to the 2005 China Renewable Energy Scale-Up Program Phase 1, which would develop
a large wind farm in the China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and
rehabilitate and develop selected small hydropower projects in Zhejiang
Province, the bank said in a statement.
The bank said the overall renewable energy scale-up program aims to develop
the Chinese commercial market for energy suppliers to provide renewable energy
to the electricity grid on a large scale in an efficient and cost-effective way.
Renewable energy sources like wind power, solar power, and biomass have up to
now been produced only in small-scale, pilot programs, outside the main
electricity supply.
Noureddine Berrah, lead energy specialist, said "China's energy demands and
its need to decrease air pollution make large-scale renewable energy development
an important goal."
"The idea behind the program is to increase the commercial, large-scale use
of renewable energy sources like wind, small hydropower, and solar energy so
that they contribute to meeting the fast-growing electricity demand from homes,
farms, and businesses."
As China's gross domestic product quadrupled from 1980 to 2000, its energy
consumption more than doubled to about 1.3 billion tons of coal equivalent.
Projections for energy consumption indicate that fuel consumption could
double or almost triple by 2020, even if energy efficiency efforts were
increased, the bank said.
The follow-up project to the China Renewable Energy Scale-Up Project (Phase
I) provides investment funds to help demonstrate success in large-scale
renewable energy development by local renewable energy developers as other local
investment funds take time to materialize.
A total of 67 million US dollars of the bank's investment would go to the
development of the 100 million watts at Huitengxile Wind Farm in the Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region, which is currently home to approximately 70 million
watts of wind generation capacity. An additional 19.33 million US dollars would
finance their habilitation and development of selected small hydropower projects
(not exceeding 10 million watts) in Zhejiang Province.
|