Respected Mr. Chairman, Committee Members, Ladies and Gentlemen:

　　I am very glad to have this opportunity to make a brief introduction to the electric power industry development and environmental protection in China.

　　1.The Status of China Electric Power Industry Development

　　For 20 years since the reform and opening up, China electric power industry has seen a rapid development. The installed capacity has reached to 277GW in 1998 from 57.12GW in 1978,the annual growth on average is 7.68%. The electricity generated annually has arrived to 1167 TWh from 256.5 TWh, meanwhile, the average annual increase rate is 7.48%. China power industry has entered a new development stage emphasized on interconnection of large power networks from focused on development of largescale units, large power networks and automation. A power industry with a proper structure has preliminarily emerged, which can basically meet the demand of socialist market economy and power industry reform and development.

　　1. Major Achievements in Electric Power Environmental Protection

　　Under the leadership of the State Council, State Power Corporation (SP) and the former Ministry of Electric Power have formulated a series of programs and implementation measures for environmental protection, and carried out technical research and engineering application in order that the environmental protection can be planned, implemented and developed together with the power industry.

　　On independent research and development and popularization of environmental protection technologies, China power environmental prevention has witnessed practical progress over all aspects, and remarkable advancement in technical level, and guidance turnabout from focusing on purification of emissions up to keeping construction and generation processes as clean as possible. All the achievements can be shown as follows.

　　(1)Adherence to inhouse research and innovation to master desulfurization techniques for thermal power plants.

　　Research and demonstration on SO2 removal technologies have been selectively conducted since the 1970s, such as the spray drier absorption and phosphate ammonia fertilizer flue gas desulfurization (FGD) carried out separately in Baima Power Plant and Duba Power Plant in Sichuan Province. Based on these tests, we have been capable of designing and manufacturing the desulfurization engineering systems of 100MW scale. The pilot tests on pressurized fluidized bed combustion, seawater desulfurization and simplified wet FGD technologies have been conducted in Jiangsu Jiawang Power Plant, Shenzhen Western Power Plant and Guiyang Power Plant respectively.

　　(2) Strengthening international cooperation on environmental protection to push-forward cooperative research and demonstration of desulfurization techniques.

　　From the beginning of 1990s, the desulfurization techniques in China entered the stage of large-scale commercial utilization. Two power generating units of 360MW in Chongqin Luohuang Power Plant were equipped with FGD system of limestone-gypsum process imported from abroad. Nanjing Xiaguan Power Plant and Shenzhen Western Power Plant imported Limestone Injection into Furnace and Activating Calcium (LIFAC) desulfurizatoin equipment and seawater desulfurization equipment respectively. Under the financial support of German KFW Bank, Beijing No.1 Thermal Power Plant, Chongqin Power Plant and Banshan Power Plant have all imported FGD equipment of wet limestonegypsum process.At the same time, the technology of wet limestonegypsum process has also been imported based on the above three projects. At present, we have grasped the desulfurization engineering design and construction techniques for largescale units. On the other hand, research and demonstration tests on simplified FGD techniques suitable to the economic and technical situations of China have actively been facilitated. Rotary spray drier absorption, simplified wet FGD and electronic beam process, in cooperation with Japanese institutions, have been completed respectively in Shandong Huangdao Power Plant, Taiyuan NO.1 Power Plant and Chengdu Thermal Power Plant.

　　The installed capacity of thermal units equipped with SO2 removal equipment reached to 1245MW by the end of 1997. It is expected that the capacity of units equipped with operational SO2 control equipment will reach to approximately 2170MW by the end of the ninth five-year plan period. Thermal power units, which are under FGD feasibility study or have got FGD feasibility study proven, amount to about 1500MW. Strive for localization and industrialization of desulfurization techniques and equipment has been speeded up, resulting in great progress.

　　(3) Strengthening emissions by law within the "two control zones" and improving comprehensive environmental protection to recognize interactive development of conservation and environmental protection.

　　By the year 2000,SP will principally realize fly ash and waste water emissions from the power plants to meet the requirement. Its SO2 and NOx emissions will start to be under primary control. Relatively, the water and soil conservation, electro-magnetic pollution and solid waste utilization have been getting more and more public attention, and have been practiced in power engineering projects. Efficiency and energy saving, as an integral part of environmental protection, have also made active progress in terms of electricity generation, transmission and distribution. Employing highparameter largescale generating units to replace low and medium parameter generating ones of lowefficiency and highpollution, and planning and implementing shutdown of small condensing steam generating units have reduced the coal equivalent consumption ratio of power supply from 448g/kWh in 1980 to 404g/kWh in 1998, resulting in great reduction in greenhouse gas CO2 emission and dynamic development of energy saving and environmental protection.

　　2. Opportunities and Challenges for Power Industry Sustainable Development

　　Along with the rapid development of China power industry, the power supply shortage for a long time has been fundamentally relieved. However, compared with the international advanced level, there in still a big gap before us.

　　(1)Relatively low power consumption level

　　In 1998, the per capita installed capacity in China is only 0.222kW, while the per capita generated electricity only 927kW, below half of the average level of the world. The proportion of the coal consumption for power generation of the whole coal output is 4212%,however, the proportion in developed countries generally exceeds 70-80%. The power consumption for inhabitants, commerce and municipal usage is still at a rather low level, of which the inhabitant consumption only shares 12% of the whole.

　　(2) Relatively outstanding power structure contradiction and low technical level

　　The proportion of hydraulic power installed capacity lowers continuously. The ratio of thermal units with high-parameter large-scale is still very low, but the number of small thermal units with low, medium and high-pressure parameters is too high. The thermal units of more than 600MW scale, clean coal generating units, nuclear power units and large-scale supercritical units take a rather small percentage. The construction of the transmission networks lags behind that of the power plants, resulting in a weak transmission structure and transmission loss of 2-3 percentage points higher than that in advanced countries. The overall technical level of the electric power industry awaits further enhancement.

　　(3) Big challenges for thermal power pollutant emissions in compliance with environmental standard.

　　4.Major counter-measures for sustainable development of China Power Industry

　　During the tenth five-year plan period and before 2010, the principal objectives of power industry are: establishing a competitive market, adjusting power structure, upgrading the power industry along with the technical advancement, ensuring the safe supply, raising the economic efficiency, enhancing the environmental protection and realizing the sustainable development. The following measures will be taken in consideration of keeping the industry to be progressing in a sustainable way.

　　(1)Improving the power structure to promote the optimized allocation of resources

　　At present, electricity produced from coal accounts for about 75 percent. From now on, we will actively develop hydro power, optimize thermal power, properly develop nuclear power, explore new energy in line with local conditions, timely increase natural gas power and mainly develop power networks, so as to upgrade power grid structure, lower coal-electricity in the power mix, and reduce environmental pollution.

　　(2) Facilitating the localization and industrialization of desulfurization techniques to speed up sulfur dioxide emission control

　　The emphasis is centered on technical digestion and innovation to imported techniques so as to greatly reduce the capital and operating costs of desulfurization equipment and provide technical support for utilities' desulfurization campaigns, creating a new way of cost-effective SO2 emission control with China's characteristics.

　　(3) Promoting the utilization of low NOx combustion technology for large-scale

　　thermal power units

　　We will further enhance the application of low NOx technique in the units of over 300MW scale, and also promote the units below 300MW to make use of low NOx technique.

　　(4) Relying upon technical advancement to positively develop and popularize clean coal and conservation technologies

　　Clean coal technologies will become the main electricity generation methods in the future, due to their comprehensive such advantages as higher efficiency and lower pollutants emissions. Currently, the CFBC demonstration power station of 100MW has shown good results; and the CFBC demonstration power station of 300MW has entered into project bidding. Meanwhile, research on key techniques and engineering feasibility of pressurized fluidized bed combustion (PFBC) and integrated gasification combined circle (IGCC) have been conducted, which are of significance to power industry's sustainable development in the 21st century.Energy saving and environmental protection are two themes and also the important component of the sustainable development of power industry. Energy saving is prerequisite for improving environmental protection. China power enterprises have tried a lot for energy saving, such as upgrading thermal power unit with larger-scale units to replace smaller ones, pushing forward the construction and localization of supercritical units, reducing transmission loss, modifying steam turbines to increase efficiency, dispatching networks for load shift, and transporting coal both by rail road and by transmission line from west to east. All these efforts have brought about obvious reduction in generation cost and pollutants emission of per unit electric energy, greatly raising the technical level and effectiveness of utilities. The social and economic benefits are quite remarkable. We will continue our efforts mentioned above.

　　(5) Strengthening international cooperation to contribute to the global environmental protection.China power industry has been participating and actively promoting internationally technical and economic exchange and cooperation for environmental protection. Based upon the power envirionmental engineering projects, bilateral and multilateral cooperation with the United Nations, the World Bank, the United States, Japan and the European Union and other countries and regions has witnessed great achievements. SP, under the principle of equality and mutual benefit, will welcome and encourage joint efforts with capable institutions and companies all over the world to make greater contribution to the cause of China and the world electric power environmental protection.

　　Thank you very much!