Solar, wind power gain over nuclear power in China, says German official
German official says solar and wind generation is reaching the market faster than nuclear power under Beijing's latest five-year plan
China's thinking has shifted increasingly towards renewable energy, which is reaching the market faster than nuclear power, a German environment official has said.
"If you analyse the last 10 years, the thinking in China has shifted more and more towards renewables. I see that renewables are getting to the markets quicker than expected and nuclear energy is getting to the markets slower than expected," said Karsten Sach, deputy director general for European and international environment policy at the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. He was speaking to the in Berlin.
Sach emphasised the importance of wind and solar energy: "If you read Chinese projections a decade ago on how nuclear and renewables would develop over the next decade, you would have seen nuclear far ahead of renewables. If you look at what happened and the projections of what will happen in the most recent five-year plan, you see renewables in front of nuclear.
"That's just the facts and those are sometimes ignored. I don't comment on Chinese policy. I just see [China is] doing much more on renewables than on nuclear. It's a very welcome decision, but China has to make its own decision," the German official said.
Sach said China recognised renewables would form a world market in the future. He said the country understood it could deliver energy in a socially beneficial way, without air pollution, and create jobs in remote areas.
Under the 12th five-year plan for 2011 to 2015, Beijing wants to increase hydropower capacity to 290 gigawatts, solar power capacity to 21GW, on-grid wind power capacity to 100GW and capacity for generating energy by burning biomass to 7.5GW by 2015. By then, the country hopes 20 per cent of the electricity it generates will come from renewable sources. Installed nuclear capacity is expected to reach 40GW by 2015.
In the aftermath of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011, China's development of nuclear energy stalled.
