Urumqi promotes electric vehicles to ease power overcapacity

URUMQI - City authorities in Urumqi are encouraging citizens and public service sectors to use electric vehicles to curb pollution and ease overcapacity in the power industry.

Starting this year, electric vehicles will be used for taxis, buses as well as cars and trucks for public services, sources with the Urumqi Electric Power Corporation of State Grid said Thursday.

The city will ensure at least 20 percent of its new buses, taxis and other public service vehicles this year will be fueled by electricity, said Liu Pengtao, a demand management specialist with the Urumqi Electric Power Corporation.

No less than 0.3 percent of newly purchased private cars in Urumqi will be electric cars, he said.

The percentages will increase year on year and reach 80 percent and 1.2 percent respectively by 2020.

By then, the city will have about 6,500 electric vehicles that consume more than 75 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 47,500 tons.

Urumqi, capital of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, presently has a fleet of 1,154 electric vehicles, one charging station, one battery replacement station and 31 utility poles.

By 2020, the city will have 20 charging stations and more than 5,100 facility poles to make charging more convenient.

Xinjiang, China's leading energy production base, has reported a huge surplus in power supply. Last year, its total power generation capacity reached 76.92 million kilowatts, nearly three times the region's own demand for electricity.

Several cities in Xinjiang have begun to replace petroleum with electricity in fueling vehicles and to replace coal with electricity in winter heating.