Beijing to realize coal-free heat supply in 2025

BEIJING -- Beijing authorities have released a plan for energy development from 2021 to 2025, emphasizing replacing coal with clean energy.

According to the plan, Beijing will strengthen the control of the amount and intensity of energy and carbon emissions and continue to promote clean energy use in rural areas. By 2025, the city will achieve a coal-free heat supply.

Beijing will improve its natural gas supply capacity and form emergency reserves of about 1.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas by 2025.

By 2025, newly-added installed power generation capacity of renewable energy will reach about 2.1 million kW. An additional 45 million square meters will be heated by renewable energy.

Located at approximately 40 degrees north latitude, the heat supply is a vital measure to ensure Beijing citizens survive the cold winter. The latest heating period lasted 137 days from 2021 to 2022 and ended last week.

The city's coal consumption has been massively reduced from over 11.65 million tonnes in 2015 to 1.35 million tonnes in 2020, showed official data.