Published 29th May, 2012
World’s largest energy consumer is forecasting the need to cap total energy consumption by 2015.
Deputy Head of the National Energy Administration (NEA Wu Yin, remarked the agency is expected to announce capping plans sometime within the next month. Green-thinking policy makers in Beijing are keen to grow the world’s second largest economy in a sustainable way and are forecasting the use of provincial energy caps to measure local officials’ performance. A similar method was used when the government tried to curb energy consumption per unit of GDP.
Chinese media have predicted government-set coal caps of around 4.1 billion tons in 2015, an increase of around 15% from the 3.48 billion tons of standard coal consumed in 2011. The target also implies the rapidly-expanding nation will have to rein in growth over the next 4 years at 17.8%.