"Twelfth Five-Year Plan" China's Hydropower Investment Will Surprise Growth

According to the report of the China Radio Network on the 11th, Liu Qi, deputy director of the National Energy Administration, pointed out that the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” outlines that hydropower should be actively developed under the premise of ecological protection and resettlement, and that construction work should be started during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period. The goal of 120 million kilowatts of hydropower. This also confirms that the 2/3 hydropower development project that Zhang Boting, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Society of Hydroelectric Power Engineering, has not done in the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan”, will be released in the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”.

Zhang Boting said that during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, the originally planned amount of hydropower started was about 70 million kilowatts, but the actual amount started was only 20 million kilowatts, accounting for 20%-30% of the planned amount. From 2008 to 2009, the country has only approved more than 10 million kilowatts of hydropower projects. There is no large-scale hydropower project. On July 8, 2010, the Jinanqiao hydropower station in the middle reaches of the Jinsha River was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission and was considered to be a sign of the reopening of major hydropower projects. Subsequently, a batch of hydropower project approvals such as the Ludila hydropower station and the Longkou hydropower station that were experiencing stagnation during the “11th Five-Year Plan” period were gradually lifted.

In the past five years, hydropower development has been highly controversial in China. China will face greater pressure to reduce carbon emissions in the future, and the nuclear crisis in Japan is likely to slow the pace of China’s nuclear power construction, and vigorous development of hydropower is an inevitable choice. However, the acceleration of hydropower construction needs to fully consider the interests of immigrants. The Outlook magazine reported that on March 25, more than 2,000 migrants from the Three Gorges Group's Xiangjiaba hydropower project took to the streets to express their dissatisfaction with the resettlement policy. Event ended on the 29th. The fundamental reason is that the resettlement policy is lagging behind and ambiguous. It can't respond to new situations and new issues in a timely manner. There is no clear plan for some compensation issues involving the vital interests of immigrants, and the announced compensation program is also difficult to satisfy immigrants.