China’s rural hydropower capacity to hit 74GW by 2015

China’s capacity of rural hydropower is expected to hit 74GW by 2015, according to its Water Resources Minister Chen Lei Saturday.

The newly-installed capacity of rural hydropower is expected to reach 15GW over the next five years. Chen Lei foresees a more important role for hydropower, helping the country to develop a low-carbon economy and securing the well-being of people, he said at the sidelines of a rural hydropower construction conference held in Chongqing Municipality.

Currently, more than half of the country’s vast territory has been covered by small hydropower projects supplying power to 300m who had previously lived without electricity, said Tian Zhongxing, chief of the ministry’s department of water and power.