Page 371 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

344 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

innovation.Since 2009, SGCC has started 228 demonstration projects of 21
categories in 26 provinces and municipalities.” (SGCC, 2010,p.1)
It is likely that China will meet and even exceed its renewable energy
development targets for 2020 by applying other alternative energies including
hydro, wind, biomass, and solar PV power. It is expected that more than
one-third of China’s households could be using solar hot water by 2020 if
current targets and policies are continued (Martinot and Li, 2010). China
expects the policy objectives to be reached through the integration of a number
of relationships: the responsibility of the state and the obligation of the public,
institutional promotion and market mechanism, current demand and long-term
development, and domestic practice and international experience.
In recent years, China has won the global recognition for its achievement in
the development and application of alternative energy. China overtook the
United States for the first time in 2009 in the race to invest in wind, solar, and
other sources of clean energy. American clean energy investments were $18.6
billion last year, which were a little more than half the Chinese total of $34.6
billion. Just a few years ago, China’s investments in clean energy totaled just
$2.5 billion (Los Angeles Times, Mar. 25, 2010). In recent years, it is
increasingly recognized that China’s “green leap forward” policy has made it
become the world’s largest makers of wind turbines and solar panels
surpassing Western competitors in the race for alternative energy. As one of
the key US newspapers points out:

China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United
States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, .. China
has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s
largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to
build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. These
efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the
West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on
solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.
New York Times (January 30, 2010)
Clean renewable energy strategy emphasizes a sustainable growth path
based on equity is leading the transition to knowledge and information
economy. When referring to China’s alternative renewable energy policy, some
studies have shown that China is facing both opportunities and challenges. The
potential opportunities are plenty, such as solar energy, wind energy, biomass
energy, small hydropower, geothermal energy, and ocean energy, whereas the
challenges are apparent as well, such as the lack of coordination and policy
consistency, weakness and incompleteness in incentive system, lack of
innovation in regional policy, immature financial system for renewable energy
projects, and the limited investment in research and development of renewable
energy (Zhang et al., 2007). There is still a long way to go before China’s
renewable energy market becomes mature and socially and culturally
embedded.