China's clean energy development is still facing "various difficulties and challenges" although the industry is growing rapidly and the country's electricity structure becoming greener, Liu Qi, vice-director of the National Energy Bureau, said yesterday at the 2009 China Power Forum held in Tianjin.

Liu said China's clean energy industry has made great progress since the adoption of the reform and opening-up policy. Non-fossil energy accounts for 8.9 percent of the primary energy consumption in 2008,4.9 points higher than the level in 1980.

China has maintained annual growth in installed generating capacity of renewable energy and power supply since the adoption of theRenewable Energy Lawin 2006, according to Xie Zhenhua, vice president of the China Electricity Council. By the end of 2008, the installed generating capacity of renewable energy reached 189.84 million kilowatts, accounting for 24 percent of the country's gross installed capacity.

But Liu stressed difficulties and challenges for developing clean energy in his address to the forum.

He said coal-fire power stations currently account for 75 percent of the total installed capacity of electricity and half of the stations under construction.

The amount of newly-launched hydropower stations have dropped sharply in recent years due to increasing costs of immigration and other factors, according to Liu. Wind power is still in the start-up stages and there is no experience in operating large wind power stations. Nuclear energy development is speeding up as many power enterprises nationwide are eager to develop nuclear energy and there is an urgency to establish technique standards and policy regulations to safeguard the industry's safe development, he added.

The vice director promised the government will work out more policies to promote clean energy and endeavor to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 15 percent by 2020.

The goal was first announced by Chinese president Hu Jintao when he attended the UN Climate Change Summit in September.

By Guo Changdong