SHANGHAI, China – CHINA plans to have “clean energy” account for 15 per cent of its total consumption under a 10-year renewable energy promotion programme soon to be made public, a state-run newspaper cites the head of the country’s National Energy Administration as saying.

The government will spend billions of dollars on building nuclear and solar power plants, wind farms and on research into renewable energy technology, Zhang Guobao said in yesterday’s edition of the China Daily.

The plan would accelerate efforts already under way to help ease reliance on expensive oil imports and heavily polluting coal, which fuels about three-quarters of China’s electricity generation.

It is also in line with Beijing’s pledges to rein in output of greenhouse gases by reducing China’s carbon intensity — its use of fossil fuels per unit of economic output — by 40 to 45 per cent by 2020.

Zhang did not say when the plan would be made fully public.

Renewable energy accounted for 9.9 per cent of China’s total energy consumption last year, up from 8.5 per cent the year before, the report said. Under the plan, by 2020, the government intends to raise that to 15 per cent.