The central government has ordered Guangdong province to shut down more than half of its diesel-fired power plants on environmental and economic grounds, after they incurred major losses amid record-high crude oil prices.
National Development and Reform Commission vice-minister Zhang Guobao said the State Council had approved a plan to close small diesel plants with an aggregate 5,000 megawatts in generation capacity.
The capacity will be replaced by newer plants using other fuels.
'Implementation is going on,' Mr Zhang said, without specifying a timetable.
Guangdong has more than 9,000MW of small-scale diesel power plants, built to cope with power shortages that have hit the province over the past few years.
Small diesel plants are less efficient and more polluting than large coal-fired plants, which are now required to install filtration units to remove sulphur and particulates.
'The plants were built without much consideration to the tight supply and high price of oil,' Mr Zhang said. 'About 10 units with capacities of 180MW each have raked in losses of close to two billion yuan this year.'
