China to Expand Capacity of Small, Rural Hydropower Plants to More Than 75 Gigawatts by 2020

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--China is planning to expand its installed capacity of rural small hydropower to more than 75 gigawatts (GW) in 2020, according to a speech made by Lei Chen, Minister of Water Resources and Honorary Chairman of the International Network on Small Hydro Power. The speech occurred at the Fifth Hydropower for Today Forum, which was held under the joint organization of China's Ministry of Water Resources and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Hangzhou on May 11, 2009.

At of the end of 2008, China had built more than 45,000 small hydropower stations with a total installed capacity of more than 51 GW across the country. In 2008, the output of small hydropower reached more than 160 billion kilowatt-hours, which is equivalent to the use of 56 million metric tons of standard coal and a reduction of 140 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

As a type of clean and renewable energy, small hydropower has supplied sufficient power for the social and economic development to a vast rural area of China and has promoted the sustainable development of remote mountain areas in China. Through the development of small hydropower, the availability of electricity in rural area has been improved from less than 40% in1980 to 99.6% in 2008.

According to Chen, China will actively promote the construction of rural electrification through hydropower development. By 2010, 400 high standard rural hydropower electrification counties will be built with a new and expanded hydropower capacity of 4.77 GW. In addition, China will accelerate the process of substituting firewood with small-scale hydropower. By 2015, new power stations with a total installed capacity of 1.7 GW will be built for the substitution of firewood in rural areas. By 2020, China's installed capacity of rural small hydropower will surpass 75 GW, which will solve the problem of transporting electricity to remote areas.

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