Li Junming, the mayor of Datong, Shanxi province, and vice Party secretary, had separate meetings with Zhang Guoliang, the GM of the Arts Enterprise Group (China), and Wu Quan, vice president of the GD Power Development Co, on Dec 2, to discuss increasing cooperation for their common development.

Arts Enterprise, founded in 2001, is involved in research, production and sales of silicon chips, solar cells, solar modules, other solar applications, and solar power stations. It was listed on the US’s Nasdaq index, in 2006, and has branches in nine countries, and makets in 30 countries around the world.

The city of Datong has done well in the new energy sector and hopes to further cooperate in the photovoltaic and biomass energy with Arts enterprise with greater vision, operation models and market strategies by providing resources and preferential policies.

Zhang said they are interested in investing and cooperating with Datong and are looking for a breakthrough in solar energy, photovoltaic manufacturing and biomass energy.

Datong is working on the power industry and electricity exports and, last year generated 38.8 billion kWh, with 27.9 billion kWh of that sent to the Beijing-Tianjin region. The Datong’s 12th Five-year Plan calls for an increase in the installed generating capacity to 18 million kWh by 2015.

Power construction and coal-to-electricity conversion are crucial for Datong’s development, Li commented, and there are good electricity export prospects in line with the national energy policy and with a GD Power 2*1,000,000-kWh project underway, Datong hopes it can work together with GD to give it a boost.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw