In 2009, China's energy industry promoted structural adjustment vigorously, insisted on "initiating big projects and restricting small ones", eliminated laggard capacity, and developed renewable energy sources and nuclear energy actively. And significant progress has been made.

By the end of last year, China has bankrupted and closed small thermal power generating units totaling 55.45 million kw, which has made one of the aims of the "Eleventh Five-year Plan" on bankrupting and closing small thermal power generating units realized one year and a half ahead. Therefore, it became possible that there were 64.04 million-ton raw coal saved, and 128 million-ton CO2 emission reduced annually.

In 2009, the proportion of China's investment on thermal power was greatly shrunk to 42% of power supply investment, decreasing seven percentage points than that of last year. In those thermal power generating units in service, the number of 600,000 kw-and-above units took up 33.4 percent with 2.1-percentage point increase than that of last year, while the number of 300,000 kw-and-above units took up 67.6 percent with 2.4-percentage point increase than that of last year.

In 2009, China's coal industry has expedited the acquisition and reorganization of coal enterprises, strengthened the force of integrating coal resource. It has been estimated that there would be 1,000 small coal mines closed in the whole year in China, and the number of coal mines would decrease to 15,000.

At the same time, the proportion of China's clean energy has been increased continuously. Statistics shows that in the first eleven months of 2009, the volumes of output and consumption of China's natural gas has increased by 8 percent and 11 percent than that of last year. The proportion of gas consumption took up 3.95 percent in primary energy consumption, up 0.18 percentage points than that of last year.

"Favorable progress has also been made in China's renewable energy and nuclear energy. The scale of nuclear power under construction ranks No.1 in the world, and such power-generation models as hydroelectric power, wind power and solar photo voltaic power have also developed to some extent." said Zhang Guobao, Director General of National Energy Bureau.

To develop nuclear energy vigorously is an important measure for China to change the power supply structure that giving priority to thermal power and to develop clean and low carbon energy. In recent years, China has initiated eight nuclear power plants with the proved scale of 31.4 million kw, and of which the scale of nuclear power under construction is 20.67 million kw, occupying more than 30 percent of the global nuclear power generating units under construction. Therefore, China has become the largest country in the scale of nuclear power under construction worldwide.

Contemporarily, China's renewable energy has also developed remarkably. In the first eleven months of 2009, among China's newly added power generating units, the proportion of those for hydroelectric and wind power occupied 29.35 percent, up three percentage points than last year. A batch of large scale hydroelectric projects have been established and put into production, and it has been estimated that 17 million-kw hydroelectric power generating units have been added, and the aggregated capacity of hydroelectric power generating units would be up to 190 million kw. In 2009, China initiated the first 10 million-kw-grade wind power base - Gansu Jiuquan wind power base, and the large scale projects of wind power interconnecting to and transmitting from the power grid were constructed side by side. It has been estimated that the capacity of wind power generating units would break through 20 million kw all the yearround, and the capacity of newly added ones would reach 8 million kw while the scale under construction would reach 10 million kw.

"Currently, an active recover trend has emerged on energy demand. In mid-and-long run, there will be larger growth space." said Zhang Guobao. The level of China's per-capita energy consumption is still low, and the condition of energy application in most of middle and west areas is still inferior. Although rural power grid has been transformed for the first turn, laggard situation has still existed, and the level of power application in rural areas is low. All of these determine that China's energy demand will still keep growth momentum within a long period.

Zhang Guobao pointed out that at present, domestic supply and demand on energy has kept a relatively lose situation generally, and the year of 2010 will still be a favorable opportunity to promote the adjustment of energy structure. The international demand on energy recovers slowly, so there are still important opportunities for expanding international energy cooperation in 2010. Meanwhile, China has been striving toward transforming the method of developing economy, which will create favorable conditions for cultivating the industry of strategic emerging energy.

As understood, National Energy Bureau has initially concluded the main expected object for developing China's energy in 2010, that is, the total output of primary energy will realize about 2.85 billion-ton coal equivalent, increasing 3.6 percent than that of last year, and trying to make the consumption proportion of non-fossil energy to primary energy increase around 0.5 percentage point. In order to achieve such an object, we shall reinforce the structural adjustment of energy to transform from mainly depending on fossil energy to actively developing and utilizing renewable energy, and provide solid energy guarantee for promoting the economy to develop stably and rapidly.

Zhang Guobao stressed that what shall be done in the future includes expanding the range being bankrupted and closed, encouraging trans-regional substitution, and giving prior approval to those meeting the condition of "initiating big projects and restricting small ones". Meanwhile, the cogeneration of heat and power shall be developed actively, the construction of large scale coal power base shall be promoted stably, and the grid construction shall be expedited.

Additionally, we shall grasp the favorable opportunity that current relation between supply and demand on coal is relatively lose, and expedite the process of transforming the development method and resource integration in coal industry. "In 2010, according to the seasonal character of natural gas consumption, China will accelerate the distribution and construct a batch of natural gas reservoir to strengthen the peak regulation capability in peak supply period in winter." Zhang Guobao expressed that as the scale of natural gas consumption is expanded increasingly and the demand is blooming, the construction of storage and peak regulation capability is far from enough.

What's more, China will actively promote the nuclear power construction, and continue to develop such renewable recourses as hydroelectric and wind power this year.

(CE.cn Feb. 2010)