China's energy development in the past decade
Post Date: 15 Nov 2012 Viewed: 372
Despite its vast territory, China's per capita energy consumption is pretty limited compared to other emerging markets. In the past 10 years, the country grew to become the world's second largest economy, while it maintained energy self-sufficiency at around 90 percent.
In 2011, the annual output of primary energy reached about 3.2 billion metric tons of standard coal, the highest in the world. Meanwhile, crude annual output was around 200 million tons, taking the fourth position globally. In the same year, the output of natural gas was about 100 billion cubic meters, ranking number six in the world.
At the same time, energy efficiency seems to improve. Energy consumption per unit GDP declined by some 13 percent, which means a saving of about 560 million tons of standard coal annually.
The improvement should benefit the development of new energy. Over the past ten years, the wind-power grid installed capacity increased by 100 times, to the current 45 million kilowatts per year.
It makes China the world's largest wind-power producer. The installed capacity of solar-power also increased in the past 10 years, from 45,000 kW to about 2 million kW.