126,000 Beijing households bid farewell to coal stoves in 2017

Another 126,000 households in Beijing can use clean heating instead of dirty coal stoves this year, local authorities said Tuesday.

At a cost of 7.4 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion), the city completed 296 projects to switch coal-fired heating to clean energy in rural areas this year, reducing the city's annual coal use by 2.1 million tonnes.

As part of a campaign launched in 2013, Beijing phased out coal-fired heating facilities in 185,000 households across 415 villages, reducing the city's coal use by 18 million tonnes over five years.

Beijing will phase out coal-fired heating facilities in 217,000 households between 2016 and 2020. By shifting to clean fuel, such as electricity and gas, the city can cut emission of carbon dioxide by nearly 600,000 tonnes, particulate matter by 3,700 tonnes and sulfur dioxide by nearly 1,500 tonnes.

Small stoves in Beijing's suburban and rural areas, not covered by the central heating system, have been blamed for worsening the city's smog during the winter.

The consumption volume of natural gas in Beijing has maintained annual growth of 15 percent in recent years, according to Beijing Gas.

Currently, China National Petroleum Corporation, the country's major oil and gas supplier, has six pipelines pumping natural gas to the capital city, and more gas pipelines connecting China and Russia will open by 2020.

These pipelines will bring the annual natural gas supply to Beijing to nearly 120 billion cubic meters.

Beijing is also expanding underground gas storage to reserve 3.85 billion cubic meters of natural gas by 2020.