BEIJING, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Almost no coal consumption will take place in Beijing's plain areas by 2020, the municipal development and reform commission said Tuesday.
The Chinese capital has stepped up efforts to curb air pollution. One of the measures is replacing coal use in downtown areas with gas, electricity and clean energy.
Beijing will basically eliminate coal use in its six downtown districts and southern plain areas this year.
By 2020, the city's coal-fired boilers for industrial and heating purposes will be converted to clean-energy ones, and gross coal consumption will be capped at 5 million tonnes, the commission added.
According to the plan of the municipal government, total energy consumption by 2020 will be capped at an equivalent to 76 million tonnes of standard coal, an average yearly increase of 2.1 percent.
The proportion of high-quality energy consumption is expected to exceed 95 percent, with renewable energy over 8 percent of the city's total energy consumption by 2020.
