Thermal, hydro and nuclear power industries are the fastest
growing of all industrial sectors. At the end of 2004, the
installed capacity of generators totaled 440 million kw, and the
total generated electricity came to 2,187 billion kwh, ranking
second in the world.?
Power grid construction has entered its fastest ever development;
main power grids now cover all the cities and most rural areas,
with 500- kv grids beginning to replace 220-kv grids for
inter-province and inter-region transmission and exchange
operations. An international advanced control automation system
with computers as the mainstay has been universally adopted, and
has proved practical. Now China's power industry has entered a new
era featuring large generating units, large power plants, large
power grids, ultra-high voltage and automation.?
Starting in the 1980s, China has invested hugely into creating a
number of large-scale modern coalmines, contributing to the gradual
increase of coal output, maintained at more than one billion tons
annually since 1989. China now has the ability to design,
construct, equip, and administer 10-million-ton opencast coalmines
and large and medium-sized mining areas. China's coal washing and
dressing technologies and abilities have constantly improved and
coal liquefaction and underground gasification are being
introduced.?
Petroleum and natural gas are important energy resources. For eight
years running from 1997 to 2004, annual crude oil output exceeded
160 million tons, ranking fifth in the world. Oil industry
development has accelerated the growth of local economies and
related industries, such as machinery manufacturing, iron and steel
industries, transport and communications. In 1996, China's natural
gas output surpassed 20 billion cu m, a figure that has increased
steadily over the following years, reaching 41.49 billion cu m in
2004.?
In 2004, China's nuclear-power-generated electricity topped 50
billion kwh, setting a record high. By 2020, China will build
36-million-kw nuclear power facilities, in addition to the
8.7-million-kw nuclear power generation capacity already in use and
under construction.?
To relieve the shortage of energy supplies that fetters China's
economic growth, China is developing new energy resources, such as
wind, solar, geothermal, and tidal power. Its abundant wind energy
resources give China the potential for mass-produced wind power.
Between 2001 and 2005, the government has invested 1.5 billion yuan
in the wind power industry. Some 200,000 small wind generators
already play an important power generation role in agricultural and
pastoral areas and according to government targets the national
installed capacity of wind generators is to increase by one million
kw every year, reaching 20 million kw by 2020. Given northern
China's rich wind energy resources, its wind power industry has
attracted domestic and overseas investment and Asia's largest wind
power station, with an investment of 10 billion yuan and an
capacity of one million kw, will be completed in Inner Mongolia
before 2008. Meanwhile, in western China, with a radiation flux of
three thousand kwh per day, solar energy has been widely utilized.
Asia's largest demonstration base for solar heating and cooling
technologies in Yuzhong County, Gansu Province, has become the
training center of applied solar technologies for developing
countries.
