Green power will embark on the market in Shanghai: 15 enterprises including Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. Ltd. and Panasonic will sign on June 12 an agreement on the purchase of electricity generated by wind power, despite a unit price 0.53 yuan higher than the common.

"Green power" refers to the power generated from reproduceable energy sources such as wind, solar energy, geo-thermal heat, tidal energy and bio-energy. Long seen in Shanghai, green power only takes up less than 1/10, 000 in the power consumption in the city due to the price bottleneck.

With the agreement, all the power generated from the new energy sources under operation in Shanghai will be consumed. Green power in Shanghai mainly comes from four wind power generating units built up in 2003 with total capacity of 34-million-kilowatt and a 10-kilowatt photo voltaics (PV) system. The wind power generating sets are capable of an annual generation of 6.1 million kilowatt-hour. A wind power plant with an installed capacity of 20,000 kilowatts will be put into operation this June. It is estimated that the plant can contribute 53.68 million kwh each year.

In the long run, it will be difficult to popularize green power if depending only on the social fund as it is now. As practice goes on, Shanghai will be able to develop a long-term effective mechanism with experience from foreign countries, said Yan Luguang, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Shanghai is the first among China's cities to explore green power mechanism. In the second half of this year, Shanghai will launch a program on promoting green power in households.