CRI听力:Clean Energy in China

China's Premier Li Keqiang once stressed at a State Council executive meeting that China will focus on developing clean energy and start up a number of projects including wind power, hydropower, photovoltaic power generation and coastal nuclear power.
 
The meeting recommended better planning for projects, perfecting and implementing supporting policies, reforming investment and financing mechanisms, and absorbing more social capital into them, ensuring the smooth going of all projects.

Among them, solar energy is a growing industry in China with more than 400 photovoltaic or PV companies.

In 2013, China became the world's leading installer of solar photo-voltaics, adding a record 11.3 Gigawatts of capacity to a cumulative total of 18.3 Gigawatts.

China's western Qinghai province now leads China in solar installations.

After decades of development, the 200 Megawatt Huanghe Hydropower Golmud Solar Park was completed in Qinghai in 2011, becoming the world's largest solar farm at the time.

"China launched a pilot program in 2010 to let companies bid for franchises. Many companies were bidding for projects of only 10 or 20 Megawatts. While in 2011, most of these companies tendered for projects of over 100 Megawatts instead."

Established in 1998, the Ying Li Green Energy Holding Company has become the largest solar module manufacturer in the world.
More than 10 Gigawatts of Yingli solar modules have been deployed worldwide.
To date, Ying Li Green Energy has provided more than 40 million solar modules to more than 50 nations and regions in the world.
Zheng Xiaoqiang is the head of Ying Li Green Energy and has a profound understanding of the steady development of the solar energy market.

"All the orders we've taken in the past three months amount to 200 Megawatts, which is worth more than 2 billion RMB. This is much higher than our combined sales in the last decade."

Ying Li's Chief Strategy Officer Ma Xuelu says scientific innovation has contributed to boosting the development of such corporations.

"The impressive achievements we have made are largely due to technological innovations. It is innovations which help us improve the quality and add value to our products, thus making us highly competitive in the international market. "

However, more and more companies are entering the Photovoltaic or PV market and the competition is becoming increasingly fierce.

Industrial technological development has greatly boosted photoelectric conversion efficiency. The generating cost is lower than commercial power prices in many places.

In order to maintain the advantage, companies have to make an annually increasing investment into scientific innovation.

China's PV industry is burdened by a European Union anti-dumping investigation into the photovoltaic modules and key components from China, launched in 2012.

In response, the Chinese central government continuously introduced supporting policies in 2012 and 2013 to encourage the development of the PV industry in China.

Benefiting from these policies, PV generation is likely to enjoy rapid growth.

"China's PV industry will face explosive growth. China is expected to account for 35% to nearly half of the world's PV installations by 2015."

Some newly distributed PV power generation projects are drawing attention along, with the growing awareness of environment protection in China.

It is a good combination of an electricity generating system and storage system. Users can sell extra electricity to the State Grid by installing a solar generator.

Ren Kai from Beijing became the first person to benefit from doing so.

"My solar generator produces 10 KiloWatt Hours per day on average and I can earn about 1.2 yuan per KiloWatt Hour. It will take me ten years or so to cover the costs. But I still believe that more and more people will prefer solar PV in the future."

Wind power is also developing rapidly in China. In 2012, China was ranked tenth in the world in wind power generating capacity.

Jiu Quan city, in western China's Gansu province, is one of several places rich in wind resources in China.

Exceptional wind resources make it suitable for a grid-connected wind power plant.

"This is a perfect wind field without any factories on it. The wind field can generate in excess of several million of kilowatts and could even produce hundreds of millions of kilowatts. "

China will invest 120 billion yuan and the project which will be finished in steps by 2020.

Various projects under construction are miniatures of China's wind industry.
Wind power generating capacity accounts for over 3% of China's overall electricity generating capacity after a decade's development.

The large market for wind power has contributed to the huge wind turbine manufacturing industry.

China relied on imports ten years ago. However, China has now become an emerging exporter of wind turbines.

China has so far exported a total of 748 wind power generators to 27 countries, including the United States, Australia, Italy and Turkey.

In addition, China is taking the initiative in exploring for natural gas, geothermal energy and other kinds of renewable energy.
All in all, renewable energy accounts for almost 20% of China's overall electricity generating capacity.

For CRI, I'm Luo Wen.