China's National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC)

With the rapid growth of the optoelectronic industry in China, the country's power generation enterprises have been planning their own thermal power generation projects, and as a result the China Concentrating Solar Power Summit will be held in Beijing on December 5.

Among the newly encouraged energy resources listed in the Catalog of Guidance of Industrial Structural Adjustment (2011 Version) issued by China's National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC) in June 2011, concentrating solar power was given priority for growth.

In addition, according to the forthcoming twelfth Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development, the installed capacity of solar thermal power is expected to reach one gigawatt (GW) by 2015 and 3GW by 2020.

Reports indicate that power generation enterprises including the five electricity giants have established teams specialising in thermal power generation, some of which have made substantive achievements and have been working on project preparations.

According to preliminary statistics, the total capacity of thermal power planned and under construction will exceed 3GW by 2015.

Although compared to Germany, US and Spain, China still has a long way to go in research and manufacturing of thermal power generation equipment, it has achieved progress in the core technologies of thermal-arrest and light collecting.

Nowadays in China, dozens of corporations are not only involved in generation plant and facility building, but also accelerating the development of their distribution capabilities.

Since the foundation of the Ordos concentrating solar power generation plant in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, generation projects with a total capacity of nearly 400MW have sprung up, among which some have doubled their investment to achieve twice as much as the planned capacity to meet the increasing demand.

It is estimated that by next year, the market value of China's concentrating solar power generation business will exceed RMB10 billion (AU$15bn).

On December 5, industry leaders from government departments, solar companies, energy companies, electricity companies, technology and facility suppliers will gather together to share their thoughts during the summit.

For details, please visit: http://csp.cbichina.com