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China Has Huge Potential for Small Hydro-electric Power Projects
China has built a total of 43,000 small hydro-electric projects for 300 million people living in the mountainous areas.
The 43,000 small hydro-electric power stations nationwide produce 23 million kwh a year.
Tian Shen, an official with the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources, said at the International Symposium on Renewable Energy held recently in Guilin that China has 100 million kilowatts of explorable small hydro-electric power resources in mountainous areas, but only 29 percent of the resources has been used. And of the untapped resources, 83 percent is in the western region, he added.
The small hydro-electric power stations now under construction have a combined generating capacity of five million kw, Liu said, adding that in the past six years, such stations with a total generating capacity of over one million kw went into operation each year and the government's annual input in such power projects tops 13 billion yuan (about 1.5 billion US dollars).
China plans to increase the per-capita consumption in rural China to 400 to 600 kwh by the year 2010 as against the current 280 kwh by adding more such small stations.
Liu Yong, an expert with the Rural Electrification Institute, said that now in China's rural area, 75 million people still have no access to power supply, and they still depend heavily on burning timber and straw, which is equivalent to burning 600 million tons of standard coal a year.
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