China's solar power investment surges in Jan.-July

BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- China's major power generation enterprises saw a surge of investment in solar power projects in the first seven months of this year, official data showed.

The investment skyrocketed 304 percent from a year ago to 77.3 billion yuan (about 11.4 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-July period, said the National Energy Administration.

These companies' investment in power engineering projects totaled 260 billion yuan during the period, up 16.8 percent year on year.

Investment in power grid projects increased 10.4 percent year on year to 223.9 billion yuan, data showed.

As of the end of July, China's total installed power generation capacity stood at about 2.46 billion kilowatts, rising 8 percent from the previous year, said the administration.