China to promote cleaner heating to fight smog

BEIJING - Cleaner heating system will be established in Beijing to control air pollution, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced on Wednesday.

A trial project will utilize renewable energy sources such as wind power to supply heat, the NEA said.

Beijing has an increasing demand for electricity and heating, while its neighboring city Zhangjiakou in Hebei province has abundant wind power resources. The two cities will work together on the trial project. Beijing and Zhangjiakou is pursuing a joint bid for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

Useful experiences could be drawn from the northeastern Jilin province and the northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region, where trial programs have been successful.

Using cleaner, renewable energy sources instead of coal to provide heating is key to transforming Beijing's energy structure and controlling air pollution, the NEA said.

Coal has always been the major energy source of heat for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and is a big cause of air pollution.