China plans to speed up clean power development in a bid to cut down air pollution caused by coal consumption, with no-fossil fuel expected to play a bigger role in the country’s energy structure, according to a guidance document recently released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

By 2017, non-fossil fuel, including wind, solar, hydro and nuclear, etc., is expected to supply 13% of the country’s energy consumption, up from a target of 11.4% in 2015 and 9.8% last year, said the NDRC in the circular on May 16.

The NDRC is aiming to have 150 GW of installed wind power capacity, almost doubling the current capacity of 77.6 GW, while targeting a more than tripling of installed solar capacity to 70 GW by 2017.

In order to reach the new targets, an annual average of 18.1 GW of wind capacity and 12.5 GW of solar capacity would need to be added in the four years to 2017.

In January, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said it aimed to add 18 GW of wind farm capacity and 14 GW of solar farm capacity this year.

The Chinese government planned to invest 1.8 trillion yuan from 2001 to 2015 to develop renewable energy projects to realise a goal of 100 GW of wind power capacity and 35 GW of solar capacity.

Of the electricity supplying the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan, 10% should come from wind by 2015 and 15% by 2017, while coal consumptions for Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong should decrease by 13 million, 10 million, 40 million and 20 million tonnes respectively by 2017, the document said.

In addition, the NDRC expects to have 330 GW of installed hydro power capacity, and 50 GW of nuclear power capacity by 2017.

China will also increase natural gas output and speed up the development of coal-bed gas and shale gas, according to the NDRC, targeting natural gas supply capacity of 250 billion cubic meters in 2015 and 330 billion cubic meters in 2017.