China's wind power capacity keeps growing

BEIJING - Installed wind power capacity in China had jumped 30 percent year on year by the end of June amid increasing government efforts to boost clean energy, official data showed Wednesday.

China had 137 gigawatts of installed wind power capacity as of the end of June, with 7.74 gigawatts added in the first half of the year, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA).

However, wind-power use fell due to wastage. The average usage of wind power in the first half was 917 hours, 85 less than the same period last year, the NEA said.

It noted that 32.3 billion kilowatt hours of wind power had been wasted, an increase of 14.8 billion kilowatt hours from a year earlier.

China is promoting non-fossil energy including wind power to power its economy in a cleaner and more sustainable manner. The government aims to lift the proportion of non-fossil energy in energy consumption to 20 percent by 2030 from the current level of around 11 percent.

China's energy mix is currently dominated by coal.