Authorities in Beijing have begun providing weather forecasts tailored for heating in cold weather in a move to reduce energy consumption and pollution in the city.

The Beijing meteorological bureau launched the service on Tuesday ahead of the heating season, which usually runs from November 15 until the following March.

Cities in northern China, such as Beijing, normally provide public heating services for people in winter, with facilities, including boilers, connected to each household with supplies of hot water circulating in the pipes.

The public heating system in Beijing aims to keep indoor temperatures above 16 C, but some people complain the temperature is too high when it gets warmer, as the daily heating temperature is fixed all through the season.

A new system with more than 100 monitoring spots across the city has been set up to make it possible to tune heating systems with appropriate figures, Ding Deping, head of the specific forecast department of the municipal bureau, said.

It will provide indoor and outdoor temperatures of residential areas and wind speeds, along with data such as water temperatures into and out of boilers, for the bureau to analyze and make forecasts, Ding said.

The monitoring system covers major residential areas of the city, including outer suburbs, he said.

The bureau has been providing trial services for dozens of heating units in Beijing since the winter of 2003, Ding said.

The new service could slash energy consumption for heating in Beijing by 5 percent a year, which translates into savings of about 100 million yuan on estimates of Beijing spending 2 billion yuan a year on heating, he said.

He said services, including the heating index and temperature forecasts, will be immediately available for staff at the Beijing District Heating Group, which provides heating for one-third of the city, and companies and organizations that provide regional services.

Individuals will be able to tune their own heaters at home according to a heating index published in the media, Ding said.

The reduced energy consumption will also mean a "bluer" sky for Beijing during the winter, as many city boilers are coal fired, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 2, 2007)