China is continuing its war on coal in order to push the use of renewable resources. The National Energy Administration (NEA) announced on Saturday that construction of upcoming coal projects would be halted in accordance with the country's Five-Year Plan.

It is reported that over 100 projects were undertaken and these projects will no longer be worked upon. The NEA report said that Beijing committed to a coal capacity cap of 1,100GW. However, the construction of new projects would have taken the amount to 1,250GW, surpassing government limits.  

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The latest ruling asked 11 provinces to stop working on these under-construction projects. These coal power plants had the aggregate capacity of more than 100GW. These projects were worth nearly $62 billion and were spread across several provinces and autonomous regions such as Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, and Gansu.

The government action has been largely lauded by the international community and environmental watchdogs. Greenpeace said, "Stopping under-construction projects seems wasteful and costly, but spending money and resources to finish these completely unneeded plants would be even more wasteful."

China is also working towards making more use of renewable sources such as wind and solar. It plans to install 130GW of new solar and wind power plants by 2020.

China is one of the biggest energy markets in the world. However, the country is also struggling with various environmental issues including pollution. Chinese authorities are now pushing the use of greener technologies for the purpose of generating energy.

Tagschina, Greenpeace, coal power plant