What they say

State Grid is building an energy-services company as part of its efforts to restructure energy consumption. The company will not only supply electricity but will also offer heating services. It will also gather together the disparate clean solar and wind energies that will be used as heating sources. Last year, 1 million households in Beijing’s rural areas began using electricity as their source of heating. Before, on average, it needed 3 to 4 metric tons of coal to heat every household for an entire winter. Now, each household requires just 4,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. This has helped to reduce consumption of bulk coal, which is a major contributor to air pollution in the area. Shu Yinbiao, member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the State Grid Corporation of China. Great achievements have been made in the control of air pollution. Last year, the air quality — especially in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster — improved a lot, mainly as a result of a five-year campaign launched by the central government in 2013. He Kebin, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at Tsinghua University, said 70 percent of the improvement was due to the efforts made by the government, while the other 30 percent was the result of favorable weather that helped to disperse pollutants. I totally agree with that. The Party and the whole country are determined to curb air pollution. Shi Xiaoming, member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and deputy director of a national joint research center on the causes and control of air pollution. Initially, about businesses were placed on a list of companies whose activities polluted the air. They were ordered to lower or suspend production during periods of severe air pollution. poorly managed businesses have been closed or relocated, or have upgraded their equipment. The list now contains companies.