By Oguzhan Ozsoy
ANKARA
China the largest consumer of coal in the world is attempting to diversify its energy sources to move towards renewable energy in particular, wind and nuclear power.
It currently gets 68 percent of its energy supply needs from coal. However in 2013, electricity generation from wind power increased by 35 percent to reach 135 terawatt-hours. Also 110 terawatt-hours electricity was generated by nuclear power plants in 2013, according to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
China, the leading country in wind energy, surpassed four continents in producing electricity from wind power in 2013 generating 91.4 gigawatts (GWs) capacity surpassing that of North America, South America, Australia and Africa continents. The three leading countries, China, U.S and Germany have around 60 percent of the total world wind energy power in 2013.
China's nuclear power generation should increase over the next few years, according to Energy expert Michael Davidson, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
"This is part of a concerted effort to introduce renewable and other non-fossil fuel energies into the electricity mix to reduce China's reliance on coal," he said adding that "wind benefited from a stable feed-in-tariff". It appears that there will be an increase in reliance on both wind and nuclear energy in the country over the next few years.
Davidson anticipates that electricity generated through nuclear energy could overtake that generated from wind energy by the end of 2015," said Davidson, who works on the China Energy and Climate Project in MIT, adding that China is committed to expanding nuclear power as well, however, the nuclear industry grew slower than wind due to its lengthy construction and time-consuming approval processes.
Davidson confirmed that the current nuclear power generation should increase over the next few years as there are 14 nuclear power units in operation in China with 8 plants under construction and in preliminary preparation with approval, according to China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).
Wind energy has become China’s third-largest energy source, behind coal and hydropower and it aims to get 15 percent of its primary energy from non-fossil sources by 2020.
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