China to spend $100b on wind power by 2020

Workers with the power supply company in Chuzhou, Anhui province, check the transmission network under the State Grid before it is connected with a local wind power farm. SONG WEIXING / FOR CHINA DAILY

BEIJING - China will spend a total of 700 billion yuan ($102 billion) on wind power during the 2016-2020 period.

Wind power's share of the overall electricity mix should be increased to 6 percent by 2020, up from 3.3 percent in 2015, according to a National Energy Administration (NEA) plan.

Wind power will create around 300,000 jobs, bringing the total number of employees to 800,000.

Wind farms are expected to produce 420 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually by 2020, up from 186 billion kilowatt hours in 2015.

By the end of 2020, total installed capacity of wind power facilities connected to the power grid will reach 210 million kilowatts, compared with 129 million kilowatts at the end of 2015.

China is promoting non-fossil energy including wind electricity to power its economy in a cleaner and more sustainable manner. The government aims to lift the proportion of non-fossil energy in the energy mix to 20 percent by 2030 from the current level of around 11 percent.

China's energy mix is currently dominated by coal.