Tibetannet

Northwest China's Qinghai Province will be entirely powered by clean energy this week, 80 percent of which will come from hydropower, a first for any Chinese province.

Hydropower, solar and wind are expected to generate millions of kilowatt-hours each day for a continuous 168 hours starting last Saturday until Friday, the People's Daily reported.

According to the State Grid, during the period the average daily electricity consumption of the province, which has a population of 5.9 million people, will be about 175 million kilowatt-hours.

Over 78 percent of the province's renewable energy comes from hydropower but Qinghai will attempt to ensure that no less than a fifth of its clean energy comes from other renewable sources during the week, borrowing energy from other regions if necessary.

"It is the first attempt at this in China, propelling energy transformation and the efficient usage of renewable energy," Quan Shengming, the manager of the State Grid in Qinghai was quoted by the People's Daily as saying.

The total power capacity of Qinghai was 2,345 gigawatts in May, 1,943 gigawatts of which was renewable power, to which hydropower and solar power are the two biggest contributors.

Qinghai is expected to increase its clean power capacity to 6,100 gigawatts by 2025 at which time it will also be capable of transmitting 110 billion kilowatt hours of energy to central and eastern China annually, replacing nearly 50 million tons of coal.

Portugal got all of its electricity from clean sources for four days from May 7, 2016 to May 11, 2016, the US-based Christian Science Monitor reported.