China Plans Renewable Energy Demonstration City

When the Chinese government decides to undertake something, it tends not to do so in half measures.

Case in point, the government has been focusing recently on renewable energy to help decrease the country’s extreme dependence on coal. Now, the central government has approved a plan to create a renewable energy demonstration city in Turpan (part of the Xinjiang Uigher Autonomous Region).

The demo will provide a model for green development elsewhere in China – and show the rest of the world how serious China is about renewable energy. The city leaders apparently have little say – they have been required to set aside an 8.8 square kilometer area as a demonstration zone for a green city.

Focusing on solar energy, Turpan will demonstrate the how urban development and renewable energy can work hand in hand. Turpan receives 3,200 hours of sunshine a year, making it a good candidate for such a project. Solar panels will be installed on the roofs of all buildings and a 13 MW photovoltaic plant will supply local energy and power public transportation vehicles.

The city plans to use geothermal for heating and cooling and to have electric buses and taxis. A population of 60,000 is expected to move in during the next few years.

"China's cumulative non-fossil energy utilization scale is equivalent to 240 million tons of standard coal or almost 8 percent of the total primary-energy consumption. China has promised the international community that non-fossil energy will account for about 15 percent of the country's total energy in 2020," Zhang Baoguo, head of China’s National Energy Administration (NEA), was quoted as saying in the People’s Daily Online.

"The National People's Congress has approved and issued the renewable energy law and the NEA has drafted a new-energy development plan. We will intensify our efforts to develop low-carbon energy and take more actions to firmly fulfill the promise.”