In addition to the World Bank loan, China has secured a grant of $US40.22 million from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to aid the development of the program.
The RESP is a comprehensive strategy to allow the Chinese administration to reorient its administrative, economical and technical capacities to deal with the many problems it faces.
The RESP will require China to develop a regulatory framework to create a competitive energy sector that brings renewable sources into line with traditional sources, allowing and encouraging development as part of an overall move towards sustainability.
Technological research and development will need to be made accessible to power producers so they can make renewable energy competitive with existing power sources, and finance structures will need to be in place to allow the construction of large-scale power projects.
“The project has come to life largely thanks to the commitment, dedication and hard work of many people at many levels in China,” said World Bank RESP manager Noureddine Berrah.
“The project will support the implementation of a national policy framework that would legally require a share of electricity supply to be met from renewable resources.
"It will also support cost reduction of equipment to increase the competitiveness of high potential renewable energy technologies over time through improvements to the quality and performance of equipment and strengthening the capability of the service industries in China so to enable them to respond to the increased market demand.”
The RESP is projected to bring about a 20 GigaWatts increase in Chinese renewable energy capacity, reduce carbon dioxide and particulate emissions by 800 million tons, bring down sulphur oxide emissions by around 30 million tons and cut nitrogen oxide emissions by six million tons.
The project will see pilot programs running in Jiangsu, Fujian, Zheijang and inner Mongolia, with a 100MW wind farm in Fuijian and a 25MW biomass plant in Jiangsu being two of the first physical outcomes of the RESP.
