Renewable energy could contribute to 30 percent of China's total energy supply by 2050, an energy expert estimated on Tuesday.

Chinese wind power stations may have the ability to generate 300 to 500 million kw of electricity in 2050 and another 200 million to 300 million kw will be generated by solar energy, Shi Dinghuan, president of the Chinese Renewable Energy Society, said at the Solar World Congress 2007 in Beijing.

Small hydropower stations could generate 100 million kilowatts of electric power by 2030 which would account for 10 percent of overall energy supply at that time, said Shi.

Shi said China had to pay more attention to developing renewable energy in order to ease the conflict between economic development and environmental protection.

It is the first time the International Solar Energy Society's Solar World Congress has been held in China since it was initiated more than two decades ago.

(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2007)