China's wind power capacity continues to grow in Q1

BEIJING - China's installed wind power capacity continued to grow in the first quarter this year, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA).

China had 151 million kilowatts of installed wind power capacity as of the end of the first quarter, up 13 percent year on year.

Provinces of Qinghai, Shaanxi, Henan and Hebei increased the most in wind power capacity during the first three months, the NEA said in an official statement.

Wind power facilities generated 68.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in the first quarter, 26 percent more than in the same period in 2016.

Due to distribution of wind resources and an imperfect grid system, 13.5 billion kilowatt hours of wind power was wasted in the first quarter, down 5.7 billion kilowatt hours from the same period last year.

China's energy mix is dominated by coal. Power consumption rose 6.9 percent year on year in the first three quarters of the year, 3.7 percentage points higher than the same period last year, official data showed.

Thanks to China's push for renewable energy, the country's energy intensity, the amount of energy consumed per unit of GDP, decreased 3.8 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said earlier this month.

China's total energy consumption will be capped at 5 billion tons of coal equivalent by 2020, according to a government plan for 2016 to 2020. This will amount to a 15 percent reduction of energy use per unit of GDP by 2020.