CLEAN energy took up more than a fifth of China's power consumption as the country boosted the use of hydro and wind power, according to official data.
China consumed 1.07 trillion kilowatt-hours of power generated from clean sources such as hydro, nuclear, wind and solar last year, up 28.5 percent from 2011, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission said yesterday.
The clean sources accounted for 21.4 percent of the nation's total power use last year, up from 17.5 percent in 2011, the SERC said. Hydro power remained the biggest clean source of energy, rising 29.3 percent to 864.1 billion kWh. As of the end of 2012, China had installed hydropower capacity totaled 249 million kilowatts, a rise of 6.8 percent from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, solar power soared 414.4 percent to 3.5 billion kWh to be the fastest growing sector.
Wind power capacity rose 31.6 percent to 60.83 million KW, while solar capacity surged 47.8 percent to 3.28 million KW as the government boosted subsidies to the solar sector. The wind and solar capacity was lower than the figures reported by the National Energy Administration on Monday because the SERC only calculates grid-connected capacity.
The NEA said earlier China will install 10 million KW of solar capacity this year, which Deutsche Bank predicted will make the country the world's largest solar market, surpassing Germany.
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