A top energy team under China's cabinet is drafting a strategy to increase access to sustainable energy among the rural poor.

The plan will be based on research of other countries' experiences and is scheduled for release next year, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) announced on Friday.

The UN agency will help the Energy Leading Group affiliated with the State Council to attract global energy experts to work on the draft.

"We want to help the (Chinese) government come up with a viable rural energy strategy, which may serve as a role model for other developing countries," Shen Yiyang, program manager of UNDP's Energy & Environment Team, told China Daily.

Details of the draft's contents were unavailable.

Ma Xiaohe, vice president of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research under the National Development and Reform Commission, confirmed that an overall rural energy strategy is being developed.

Energy demand in rural areas is expected to increase rapidly in the run-up to 2030, he said.

Rural energy consumption is expected to reach between 1 and 1.4 billion tons coal equivalent by 2015, compared to 370 million tons in 2000.

The supply of commercial energy -- electricity, coal and natural gas -- is expected to meet two-thirds of rural areas' energy demand. Energy sources located in the countryside will supply the other third, Ma said.

Currently, renewable energy accounts for only a small amount of rural energy supplies. But according to Ma, green energy will reach 400 million tons of coal equivalent by 2020.

The country has set a goal of raising the ratio of renewable energy in the total energy supply to 15 percent by 2020, compared to the present 8 percent.

(China Daily November 24,2 007)