Can China switch 70 per cent of northern cities to clean heating by 2021 in bid to tackle pollution?
Plan will see volume of coal burnt fall by 74 million tonnes by 2019, Beijing says
Beijing aims to have half of northern China heating their homes with clean energy by 2019, and 70 per cent by 2021, state media reported, under a new five-year plan for the region.
Reports of the plan over the weekend come amid a deepening heating crisis, after a government campaign to switch millions of households and thousands of businesses from coal to natural gas in northern China this winter backfired.
Severe natural gas shortages have sent prices soaring nationwide, hitting businesses and residents across China’s industrial heartland.
The plan, from 2017 to 2021, was drafted by 10 government agencies, including state planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration, the official Outlook Weekly reported over the weekend.
The government has made “concrete arrangements” regarding geothermal heating, biomass heating, solar heating, gas heating, electric heating, industrial waste heating, and clean coal-fired central heating, Securities Times quoted China Energy News as saying in a separate report on Sunday.