BEIJING, Jan 04, 2010 -- Xinhua


China's central government has eased its concern on overcapacity in multi-crystalline silicon and wind equipment manufacturing based on latest survey, said China Economic Observer on Monday.

Shi Lishan, an official with the National Energy Administration, said recently that China required 25,000 to 30,000 metric tons (tonnes) of multi-crystalline silicon in 2009 while domestic output was only 15,000 tonnes/year.

However, in the second half 2009 China had 80,000 tonnes of multi-crystalline silicon production facilities under construction, posing a severe potential overcapacity.
 

These problems have been highlighted by an earlier survey by the National Development Research and Reform Commission (NDRC).

To meet these difficulties, NDRC, China's top economic planner, will not approve capacity expansions with low technical levels, said Shi.

Additionally, the government shall continue to support the building of key parts and accessories production lines alongside its efforts to rein in the construction of backward facilities and speculative investments, according to the NDRC survey.

The survey also recommends the government to promote the development of power grid networks and the introduction of feed-in-tariff mechanism for solar PV power and wind power. Multi-crystalline silicon production is the key upstream sector for PV power industry.

Shi added that China would support the development of 3-MW and 5-MW wind turbines and the local production of core parts for wind turbines. China reported more than 12 GW of installed wind power capacity by 2008, an enormous leap from the 764 MW of 2004.

The country is now considering whether it will raise its installed wind power capacity target to 150 GW by 2020, up from the current objective of 30 GW. (Edited by Liu Yanan, liuyn@xinhua.org)

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