China, The world's largest producer of Photovoltaic power (it is a method to convert solar energy into current) and also the largest producer and consumer of coal . China leads the world in its production of renewable energy, to that of combined production of Germany and France power plants. China is in leading production of renewable energy than fossil fuels and nuclear power. In September 2013, as an action plan, to control the air pollution, China's government desired to utilize more renewable energy as it has abundant water, wind and solar power than oil, coal and gas. In the year 2013, the coal production and consumption increased rapidly and later on, it dropped continuously by 3.7% in 2015. However the central government restricted and issued directions for construction of new coal plants in the country, and the National Energy Agency banned new constructions of coal mines for three months and sealed some thousands of small coal mines. In the year 2016, even though wind power generation capacity increased , nearly 26% of the total turbines were not utilized up to their maximum extent. Despite this, new turbines, which can generate 33 million kilowatts of electricity are installed, and now the country reached in generating the electricity to 129 million kilowatts per year. In previous years the over supply of wind turbines and the lack of smart grid to control the fluctuations resulted in the wastage of the wind, hydro and solar energy. To meet the demand and to stabilize the supply, the local government, along with some grid companies assigned power quotas to control the weakening demand. Coal plants are the easiest and fastest way towards the economic growth and in creating jobs.
Diversified Preferences
Some of the experts expressed that, the adopted policies of the local government are not appropriate and they are interrupting the development of the renewable energy sources. And others expressed that government supports fossil fuels rather than renewable resources which are cheap and supports the local people by creating the jobs. In the month of December in some parts of the country the respective authorities squeezed the production and levied more fee on wind, solar and hydro power producers and in some places the authorities reduced the price paid by the state from 40 to 75 %, to facilitate the local grid. This was strongly opposed by the renewable energy producers, this resulted a major loss for the wind energy producers. Due to the consequences, the wind power generating companies lost more than 18 billion yuan in production slots, and the world's largest wind energy firms also suffered a loss of 500 million yuan in 2015 as some of their turbines were forced to stop the production. Despite the demand drops, the local authorities support the coal fired power plants, without central government approval, approved 155 new coal power plants which is three times more that that of the approval rate of the previous year.
Increased Pressure
In the year 2014, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in China, had set up some long term future plans and targeted to increase the production of non-fossil fuel sources to more than 90% by 2050. Coal is the cheapest source of power generator, which costs 0.3yuan for one kWh, whereas 0.6yuan for solar power. To meet the goal now the government has to impose a pollution tax or a carbon tax on producers of fossil fuels, ultimately then there will be a rise in the cost of production of electricity. If this tax is levied, then by 2020, the coal power generation cost increases to 0.85 yuan per kWh to that of 0.51 yuan and 0.62 yuan per kWh for wind and solar energy.
One of the Main Functions of the NDRC is to formulate and implement strategies of national economic and social development, annual plans, medium and long-term development plans; to coordinate economic and social development; to carry out research and analysis on domestic and international economic situation; to put forward targets and policies concerning the development of the national economy, the regulation of the overall price level and the optimization of major economic structures, and to make recommendations on the employment of various economic instruments and policies; to submit the plan for national economic and social development to the National People's Congress on behalf of the State Council.
The central government has to observe the consequences that are occurring by the local authorities and has to take certain measures to control and implement the national level policies which supports the economy's growth and works wonders.