China has saved 45 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity since launching its green lighting project in 1996, said a senior official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in Shanghai Monday.

China will further promote green lighting in the coming five years to relieve the current electricity supply crunch, said Zhao Jiarong, director of the Environment and Resource Conservation Department of NDRC, at the opening of an international conference on green lighting.

China set a goal to reduce annual lighting energy consumption by 10 percent in the next five years, which is expected to save a total of 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity by 2010, said Zhao.

As electricity is mostly generated by thermal power plants in China, green lighting projects could also help reduce the emissionof green house gases, she said. In the past nine years, the emission of carbon dioxide was reduced by 13 million tons, said Zhao.

The project is jointly funded by the United Nations DevelopmentProgram and Global Environment Facility.
 
(Xinhua)