Renewables generate a quarter China's energy

Renewable energy accounted for nearly a quarter of China’s power generation last year, even as wind and solar farms with 39 billion kilowatt-hours of capacity sat idle due to poor planning in the rush to meet Beijing’s ambitious green energy targets, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said. Hydropower was the biggest contributor among major renewable energy sources, accounting for about one-fifth of China’s electricity in 2015. Another 3.3% of the nation’s power came from wind farms, 0.7% from solar farms, and 0.9T from biomass power plants, Caixin reports. Wind turbines that can produce 33.9 billion kilowatt-hours of power sat idle last year, with almost 40% of those in the northwestern Gansu province, 32% in Xinjiang and Jilin and 21% in Heilongjiang.