Chaoyang to replace all coal with clean energy in heating boilers by year end

This year, Beijing's Chaoyang district is to promote the usage of clean energy in public heating systems, replacing all coal-fired boilers by the end of 2015, according to the district's environmental authority.

According to the authority, the district will start a trial operation of the air quality automatic monitoring system to realize real-time monitoring of such pollutants as SO2 and PM2.5 together with the weather conditions.

Meanwhile, Chaoyang district will take a number of measures on air pollution control to reduce the total discharge of pollutants and improve air quality by taking its regional positioning and the ever-increasing pace of urbanization into account.

It will make efforts to supervise the sources of pollution, and stringently control vehicle exhausts by accelerating the adjustment of the industrial structure, and intensifying the treatment of exhaust-pipe pollution.

So far, Chaoyang district has established a total of eight PM2.5 automatic monitoring sub-stations in such places as the Olympic Forest Park and Jianguomenwai Street.

An official from the Environmental Protection Bureau of Chaoyang district said, "This year, the trial operation of the monitoring system will be used to keep a close eye on pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), and the inhalable particulate matter (PM10), hoping to improve the environmental protection-related scientific innovation."

In order to reduce the fume pollution in its catering industry, Chaoyang district is undertaking online monitoring of cooking fume emissions from restaurants and catering services.

Large restaurants or catering services in key areas or environmentally sensitive areas will be equipped with online monitoring devices, which will be linked to the monitoring system of the district's environmental protection bureau for realizing a round-the-clock real-time surveillance of the discharge of pollutants.

"The online monitoring system of oily fumes makes it possible to undertake the central management of scattered restaurants and catering services and monitor the whole process of the emissions, so that the environmental protection law enforcement becomes more efficient because of the scientific evidence now available to law enforcers," the official added.

On the basis of the monitoring data, the authority can single out those heavy polluters in the catering sector and put more pressure on these enterprises.