BEIJING, Aug 8 (Reuters) - China has hiked its 2015 target
for solar power capacity by 40 percent to 21 gigawatts (GW), a
government agency said on Wednesday, with falling costs and new
regulations boosting growth in the sector.
    China, the world's largest exporter of photovoltaic products
and home to firms such as Suntech Power and LDK Solar
, in August 2011 standardized tariffs for energy fed into
the national grid, reducing costs for solar power developers.
    That helped drive an estimated quadrupling of installed
solar power capacity to more than 2.0 GW in 2011.
    State media has also reported that the country's biggest
energy producers and grid companies will be given minimum
requirements for the usage of renewable sources, helping solar
firms. 
    The National Energy Administration's (NEA) new goal for
installed solar capacity is much higher than the 15 GW state
media reported late last year, and more than double the 10 GW
target set after the Japanese nuclear crisis in March 2011.
    The NEA said in a plan published on its website
(www.nea.gov.cn) that renewable energy would amount to 478
million tonnes of standard coal by 2015, accounting for more
than 9.5 percent of the country's total energy consumption. 
    Targets for hydropower capacity remain unchanged at 290 GW
at the end of 2015, with 260 GW from normal hydropower plants
and 30 GW from pumped storage hydropower stations. 
    Goals for on-grid wind power have also been kept at 100 GW
by the end of 2015, with 5 GW from wind farms on the sea.
    The following table shows renewable energy development
targets by 2015, according to the NEA and state media reports:
    
                                           2015         2009    
    Hydropower capacity(GW)                 260          196
    Pumped storage hydropower capacity (GW)  30          N/A
    On-grid wind power capacity(GW)         100         17.6
    Solar power capacity(GW)                 21         0.16
    Biomass power capacity(GW)               13         1.09
    Geothermal, tidal power capacity(MW)  110-120       28.1
    Ocean power capacity (MW)                50          N/A