The city of Datong, Shanxi province, is justifiably famous for its coal and for being China's coal capital, but it is in the process of changing itself into a city of new energies with a new development strategy.

Datong has 37.6 billion tons of proven coal reserves and, since the founding of the People's Republic has provided over 2.3 billion tons of high-quality coal, so it is also China's "boiler room". Its abundance of coal mines also meant that Datong was one of the most heavily polluted cities in China, by about 2005. The environmental degradation and unbalanced industrial structure seriously hampered the city's development.

In recent years, however, it has spent 3 billion yuan ($490 million) on greening, and building many parks and gardens, while new urban planning was introduced to improve its appearance.

More important, new energy development is helping with the transformation and, now, instead of relying on non-renewable energy, the city is making an effort to develop a new-energy structure, including wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy. The output value of the new energy industry is expected to reach 1 trillion yuan by 2015 and become an important Chinese new-energy base, by 2020. And, its citizens are feeling the improvements.

Solar energy seems to have one of the brightest futures in Datong because of sun resources. And the China Solar Decathlon is taking place here, the first time for the event to be hosted by China and the first time in Asia, with 20 "sun houses" being exhibited at the event and attracting the attention of people from China and abroad with their energy-saving, environmentally friendly approaches. The event is a great chance for the city to complete its transformation from the old coal capital to the new solar city.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw