Authorities in Beijing have begun providing weather forecasts
tailored for heating in cold weather in a move to reduce energy
consumption and pollution in the city.
The Beijing meteorological bureau launched the service on
Tuesday ahead of the heating season, which usually runs from
November 15 until the following March.
Cities in northern China, such as Beijing, normally provide
public heating services for people in winter, with facilities,
including boilers, connected to each household with supplies of hot
water circulating in the pipes.
The public heating system in Beijing aims to keep indoor
temperatures above 16 C, but some people complain the temperature
is too high when it gets warmer, as the daily heating temperature
is fixed all through the season.
A new system with more than 100 monitoring spots across the city
has been set up to make it possible to tune heating systems with
appropriate figures, Ding Deping, head of the specific forecast
department of the municipal bureau, said.
It will provide indoor and outdoor temperatures of residential
areas and wind speeds, along with data such as water temperatures
into and out of boilers, for the bureau to analyze and make
forecasts, Ding said.
The monitoring system covers major residential areas of the
city, including outer suburbs, he said.
The bureau has been providing trial services for dozens of
heating units in Beijing since the winter of 2003, Ding said.
The new service could slash energy consumption for heating in
Beijing by 5 percent a year, which translates into savings of about
100 million yuan on estimates of Beijing spending 2 billion yuan a
year on heating, he said.
He said services, including the heating index and temperature
forecasts, will be immediately available for staff at the Beijing
District Heating Group, which provides heating for one-third of the
city, and companies and organizations that provide regional
services.
Individuals will be able to tune their own heaters at home
according to a heating index published in the media, Ding said.
The reduced energy consumption will also mean a "bluer" sky for
Beijing during the winter, as many city boilers are coal fired, he
said.
(Xinhua News Agency November 2, 2007)