126,000 Beijing households bid farewell to coal stoves in 2017

BEIJING -- An extra 126,000 households in Beijing can use clean-energy-fueled heating facilities instead of highly polluting coal stoves this year, local authorities said Tuesday.

With an investment of 7.4 billion yuan ($1.1 billion), the city completed 296 projects switching coal-fired heating facilities to clean energy, in rural areas this year, reducing the city's annual coal use by 2.08 million tonnes.

As part of a campaign launched in 2013 to replace coal with cleaner fuel, Beijing has phased out coal-fired heating facilities in 185,000 households across 415 villages, reducing the city's coal use by 18 million tonnes over five years.

Beijing will phase out coal-fired heating facilities in 217,000 households between 2016 and 2020. By shifting to clean fuel, such as electricity and gas, the city can cut the emission of carbon dioxide by nearly 600,000 tonnes, particulate matter by 3,700 tonnes and sulfur dioxide by nearly 1,500 tonnes.

Small stoves in Beijing's suburban and rural areas, not covered by the central heating system, have been blamed for worsening the city's smog during the winter.

The consumption volume of natural gas in Beijing has maintained annual growth of 15 percent in recent years, according to Beijing Gas.