The new area has the nation's densest concentration of wind power companies. Jia Lei / for China Daily

It's a chilly winter but, when you wake up, you're in a warm room, heated by solar panels and geothermal heat. You get dressed, eat, and go to the garage to find the lights already on because of the natural light outside.

Welcome to the "low-carbon" life your average Joe or Joan living in the Binhai New Area are going to be enjoying thanks to the new energy business.

Obviously, industry experts and scientists are saying, environmental and energy problems are forcing us to look for alternatives in a low-carbon economy.

Hence the theme of this year's second China (Binhai Tianjin) International Eco-city Forum & Expo, which runs today till Sept 27 - "Low-carbon development and eco-cities".

One session had experts from around the global discussing topics such as "low-carbon technology and renewable energy applications", or "management of low-carbon energy systems", and "low-carbon-energy- based infrastructure".

Tianjin's Binhai New Area, which is the permanent host of this event since the first session last year, has opened a "green gate" this year to let people imagine a "low-carbon city". It is giving priority to new energy sources such as wind power, solar power, green batteries, and semiconductor lighting.

There are several wind power generators, 80 meters high with 93-meter blades and a stand-alone capacity of 2 megawatts each.

Tianjin Binhai's first wind power project, the Dashentang wind farm, will begin operation next year, and generate enough power for 73,000 families.

The new area has the nation's densest concentration of wind power companies - more than 30 of them, including Vestas, Gamesa, and the Tianjin Dongqi Wind Turbine Blade Engineering Co.

By 2020, it is expected to have five wind farms with a total capacity of 230,000 kilowatts.

Under the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the area will have photovoltaic (PV) demonstration sites in the high-tech zone and Sino-Singaporean Tianjin Eco-city, according to Zong Guoying, head of the new area.

And, by 2015, its Solar PVs are expected to have a total output of 4100 megawatts. In addition, there will be 100,000 PV roofs with 300 megawatts of installed power, making the new area an international leader in new energy production.

The fact that the area's power usage increases at about 25 percent annually has caused the green battery industry to play a catch-up game. Currently, the area's Lithium Ion battery output accounts for more than a third of the nation's total, making it the top green battery producer in overall strength.

The LED industry is in a fledgling state and has a basic supply chain in place, with more than 30 companies involved in semiconductor lighting R&D. Samsung LED has the only overseas manufacturing plant in Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area.

"We'll do our best to have less than 150 tons of CO2 emission per million dollars of GDP, and a 20 percent utilization rate for renewable energy," Zong said.

"The regional development theory for the 12th five-year plan calls for intensive internationalization and low-carbon emissions. And technology is the key to this,," said Xia Xin, head of the high-tech zone's economic development bureau.

To maximize the renewable energy sector's contribution to a low-carbon lifestyle, the new area recently announced its measures for promoting alternative energy development.

Brilliant future

Over the next three years, it will spend 1.8 billion yuan on the wind power, solar PV, green secondary battery and semiconductor lighting industries.

The announcement came at the same time as a session on "policies for financing and investing in low-carbon development" at the second China (Binhai Tianjin) International Eco-city Forum & Expo.

Forum participants agreed that, "this will be a model for low-carbon financing, upgrading traditional industries and promoting a low-carbon alternative energy industry".

(China Daily 09/23/2011 page12)