China may annually save 150 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity just by raising power efficiency of its electromotors by 5 percent to 7 percent, said a senior Chinese lawmaker.

"That's the power output of the Three Gorges plant in more than two years," said Guo Shuyan, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC).

He said China's electromotors has an aggregate capacity of 420 million kilowatts. Power efficiency of these electromotors is less than 90 percent, about 10 percentage points lower than the international level.

"Upgrading these eletromotors is not complicated," said Guo. "But neglecting the upgrade results in staggering waste."

According to a research report of the NPC Standing Committee, China's power plants consumed 379 grams of standard coal for production of one kilowatt-hour of electricity in 2004, 67 grams higher than advanced level in the world.

Guo said while China faces shortage of natural resources, it is wasting lots of them.

He said China's weak technical support in energy saving has fallen far behind the new situation.

But he noted many energy saving measures are not so complicated as imagined.

It is estimated that if each urban household changes a 40-kilowatt incandescent lamp to a 8-kilowatt energy-saving lamp, which provides the same brightness, each household will save 70 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year supposing the lamp is on six hours every day. It means the 140 million urban households in China is capable of saving 9.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year.

Guo said there are many good energy saving practices and experience in many sectors. China has big energy-saving potential if these methods are widely applied.

"If so, it's absolutely possible to achieve a 20 percent reduction in energy consumption for every unit of GDP during the 11th Five-Year Plan period," said Guo.

Source: Xinhua