According to the State Power Corp of China, the nation's largest power producer, China's installed hydropower capacity is likely to increase by 35 percent from the current 74 million kilowatts to some 100 million kilowatts by 2005, when hydropower is expected to represent 27 percent of the nation's power generation capacity, a 3.5 percent rise from its current level.

By 2015, a total of 150 million kilowatts will have been installed, the company added.

The development of clean and renewable hydropower is of great significance to the country as it tries to satisfy increasing power demands while also working to protect the environment, officials said.

In the coming five years, power consumption nationwide is expected to increase by 5-6 percent annually. By 2005, power consumption will likely increase by 26.9 percent over current levels, rising to an estimated total of 1,650 billion kilowatt hours a year.

The company said abundant hydropower resources in the western regions, especially along the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the upper and middle sections of the Yangtze River, are expected to play an important role in fulfilling the country's ambitious goals.

Plans are in the works for new hydropower projects to be launched in 12 provinces and autonomous regions in western China. The new projects in the west, part of the gigantic west-to-east power transmission project, account for 30 percent of to-be-constructed power projects across the country through the next five years.

According to State Power Corp estimates, those projects will eventually be capable of providing 10 million kilowatt hours of electricity to economically bustling Guangdong Province.

Among the projects being planned are a 4.2-million-kilowatt hydropower station at Longtan on the Hongshui River in Guangxi, which should be built next year, and the Shuibuya hydropower station on the Qingjiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze River in Central China's Hubei Province, which will be constructed at an unspecified time in the near future.

Two other hydropower projects on the Yangtze River, Xiangjiaba and Xiluodu, are also in the initial planning stages.

The nation's total hydropower resources are estimated at 378,000 megawatts, making China the world's largest possessor of water power potential.

To date, China is exploiting only 10 per cent of its hydropower resources, compared with 50-90 percent in some developed countries.

According to the State Power Corp, hydropower's piece of the energy pie has been steadily decreasing, from 30.9 percent in 1980 to around 20 percent in recent years, mainly because the country has favored the installation of thermal units in the last two decades.

Currently, more than 70 percent of China's electric power comes from thermal power plants. The result has been severe pollution, especially in coastal cities.

To optimize its power structure and realize sustainable development, China has recently begun to curb small thermal power plants with production capacity of a single generating unit under 500,000 kilowatts.

Since 1997, the State Power Corp of China alone has terminated small thermal power plants representing a total installed capacity of 7.78 million kilowatts, more than 80 percent of the national total of small plants to be shut down.

(China Daily 01/02/2001)