China issues guidelines on recycling wind-power, photovoltaic equipment

BEIJING -- Chinese authorities have released guidelines to promote the recycling of decommissioned wind-power and photovoltaic equipment, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's economic planner, announced Thursday.

The guidelines state that the country will actively build a recycling system of wind-power and photovoltaic equipment, covering green design, standardized recycling, high-value utilization, harmless disposal and other links in the recycling chain.

The guidelines also outline six key tasks: vigorously promoting green design; establishing and improving the responsibility mechanism for the disposal of decommissioned equipment; improving the equipment recycling system; strengthening the capacity of resource recycling; prudently promoting equipment remanufacturing; and standardizing the harmless disposal of solid waste.

China's new-energy industry has developed rapidly, and the installed capacity of wind and photovoltaic power ranks first in the world, according to the economic planner. With the acceleration of industrial upgrading and equipment renewal, new-energy equipment will face the problem of decommissioning on a large scale.

By the end of April this year, China's installed capacity of wind power reached 380 million kW, while the installed capacity of photovoltaic power came in at 440 million kW. In combinations, the two accounted for 30.9 percent of the country's installed power generation capacity, official data shows.