Guangdong Goes Green
Tags: China, Energy Efficient, Lighting
It was inevitable that heavily industrialized China would eventually need to come up with an environmental policy for large companies which use enormous amounts of energy every year. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is leading the pack with a program that hopes to bring energy efficient technology to mass energy using companies in the industrialized area of Guangdong, the People's Republic of China (PRC).
In association with the Guangdong Energy Efficiency and Environment Improvement Investment Program, ADB is providing low-cost, long term financing to grant the Guangdong government. The program will utilize $100 million to replace high energy using technologies with energy efficient alternatives.
The clean energy fund will also grant $800,000 to speed up the process of developing and using clean energy programs in the Guangdong area. The grants will hopefully allow the PRC to quickly turn over a new leaf and begin heading in the direction of renewable and clean energy resources.
The population of Guangdong has been expanding by 2.2% every year since 1995, making the new program seem more important than ever. The investment program is predicted to save 533 GWh annually and reduce coal consumption by 175,813 tonnes per year. Electricity bills will be cut by $43 million.
Siew Fing Wong, Senior Financial Analysis Specialist of ADB's East Asia Department said: "Saving energy can be as simple as changing the type of lighting, using a more efficient motor or installing an energy-efficient air-conditioning system. Taken separately, these initiatives yield small savings for a single energy consumer; however, taken together, they can save a community the equivalent of a large power plant."
