More households to use clean energy heating in 2021: Ministry

BEIJING - More Chinese households will switch to clean energy to heat their homes this year, official data showed on Friday.

By the end of 2021, the country is expected to transform over 28 million households from coal-burning to clean heating in north China's Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Fenhe-Weihe Plain, Ministry of Ecology and Environment official Wu Xianfeng told a press conference.

The figure rose from about 25 million at the end of last year, Wu said, adding that clean heating contributes approximately 30 percent to the country's air quality improvement.

To ensure an adequate supply of clean energy, the country will also step up measures to stabilize natural gas prices and tilt subsidy policies toward rural, low-income populations, Wu added.

The clean energy transition is one of China's approaches to curbing air pollution. In 2020, China's average concentration of ambient particulate matter, or PM2.5, declined 28.3 percent from 2015, while the percentage of days with good air quality rose 5.8 percentage points from 2015.