Inner Mongolia, China – Renewable energy is gradually reducing the heavy dependence on traditional power supply for some regions in the People’s Republic of China, as the vast Asian nation looks to reduce carbon emission (CO2).
Report by Alpha Daffae Senkpeni,[email protected]
China, the world’s leader in renewable energy with over 150 million kilowatts, invested $102.9 billion in clean power before the end of 2015. As companies like Elion Resources Group and Beijing Energy Company pouring more billions into the sector, green power is hitting new heights in the world most populous nation.
The country has taken actions to reduce CO2 including the 2013’s imposition of a ban on the construction of new coal plants in three industrial regions, and in 2014 it set a national objective of reducing the use of coal in 12 provinces before the end of 2017.
In the northern province of Inner Mongolia the objective is gaining progress. At least 30 percent of the total power grid of the province is from renewable energy.
That is significant progress considering that years back the autonomous province relied 100 percent on coal energy as the only source of power to fuel its economy, experts say. In 2016, the output of coal power production amounted to 845.5 million kilowatts.
Coal energy has been China’s burden-to-carry amid the country’s massive economic progress in recent years.
The huge threat facing the environment due to carbon emission (CO2) has given the world’s second biggest economy a much bigger role which includes solidifying its commitment to global efforts in order to prevent climate change.
For regions like Inner Mongolia, the gradual switch to renewable energy is the aftermath of massive investments in both photovoltaic (solar) and wind power energy generation.
Before the end of 2016, Elion Resources Group had invested about US$146.9 million in a solar energy project on a field of hosting 650,000 pieces of solar panels covering 9,000 hectares in the Kubuqi Desert.
The power project by Elion, a private company heavily investing in China’s ecological sector, has the potential of generating a total of 1,000 megawatts of solar energy, but for now, only 310 megawatts is being generated with 350,000 kilowatts produced per hour on a daily basis.
And for the wind power plant project in Huitangxile, 135 km from the provincial capital, Hohhot, it is already successfully contributing 260 megawatts of green power to the main power grid.
The project took off in November 2016 and has set up 144 wind fans covering more than 50 square kilometers; where the technicality of the power generation system is effectively monitored to produce electricity. Power generated is transmitted into 3.5 kilowatts then converted to 220 kilovolts before being sent out to the end users.
Without hydro power plant, Inner Mongolia relied only on coal power until the emergence and success of its renewable energy projects.
The 30% renewable energy compliments the total energy grid – wind power accounts for 25.56 million kilowatts installed capacity with a total output of 46.4 million kilowatts (17% of the total wind power capacity of China), while the installed solar power has reached 6.36 million kilohertz with an output capacity of 8.3 billion kilohertz.
It took the province almost 10 years to acquire this amount of renewable energy, and experts working in the sector, say a complete transition to green energy must be done meticulously.
The stability of energy will be troubled if pressured because it has to be done step by step to completely move to clean energy based on a national strategy, a Chinese expert of wind power energy told a group of African journalists recently during a tour of the facility.
Last year, China said it was going to stop or delay the construction of coal plants in 28 provinces which is now gradually seeing a shift in heavy dependence on coal to renewable power.
In 2015, China reduced its CO2 emissions for the first time in the last 15 years, after renewable energy capacity had increased significantly in the previous three years.
The country’s power sector five-year plan was released in November 2016, and the momentum it now shows epitomizes the impact of cleaner energy on reducing the capacity of coal power plants at 1,100 GW by the end of 2020.