Sun Qin, deputy director of national energy administration, said: “The move is estimated to have saved about 62 million tons of crude coal and cut emissions of carbon dioxide by 124 million tons, and of sulfur dioxide by 1.06 million tons, each year. It is meaningful in our efforts to tackle climate change.”
Zhang Liqun, research fellow of Development Research Center of State Council, said: “The goal was realized one and a half years in advance. The most important thing is that we don’t ease our efforts on energy-saving and emission-reduction while we keep growth.”
China has set a target, for the next stage of the goal, to close power plants with the capacity of approximately 200-thousand kilowatts, which implies that approximately 80 million kV of small thermal power plants will be phased out.
The average coal consumption by the coal-fired plants had decreased by 30 grams to 340 grams a kilowatt, due to the closures of the power plants, which equated to 160 million tonnes of coal saved since the beginning of 2006.
Sun continued that there is a decrease of approximately 1.06 million tonnes of Sulfur dioxide emissions and approximately 124 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions anually. The country has allocated approximately $292.8m from the central budget since 2006 to enterprises and local governments involved in small thermal power capacity closures.
In order to further cut energy consumption, lower emissions and protect the environment, Sun has called on local governments and enterprises to close small thermal power capacity.
