The Sichuan power company was obligated by law to buy half of its power from coal-fired power plants, regardless of their inefficiency or environmental impacts.
Since then, China’s power sector has rapidly expanded greener generation sources.
In 2016 alone, China installed 34.2GW of solar PV and 23.4GW of wind capacity – nearly 50 percent of the world’s new solar and wind capacity.
There’s no need for them; they create local air pollution, and China has the most efficient plants in the world that they aren’t using.
It’s an opportunity to improve the economics for consumers, whether you’re a residential or industrial customer, as well as to use good energy policy as part of the way that you will achieve improved air and water quality.
Article 32 of the new air law states that air quality plans must contain clean energy policies to also help improve air.
We’re talking about using China’s excellent wind and solar resources to full utilization as we’ve seen in places like Texas and Denmark, and having the air regulators understand the importance and the contribution that these clean energy policies can make towards improving local and provincial air quality.
Local officials look at building more power plants as economic development, even if the power plants aren’t used.
A: There also needs to be strong oversight to work on the economics, so local officials have the ability to tax electricity whether it’s generated in the province or not.
How much money does the province need, how much is it getting right now, and how can we preserve our revenue source while also moving towards a market-based electricity system that utilizes resources more effectively and also avoids the need to build these expensive power plants?