(Yicai Global) Dec. 18 -- Chinese agencies have issued the Clean Winter Heating Plan for Northern Regions (2017-2021) with the aim of curbing air pollution.

China aims to substitute coal with clean sources in cities with serious smog problems to create a fair, open and diversified clean energy heating market with high service standards over the next five years.

The National Development and Reform Commission, National Energy Administration, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development set out specific arrangements to promote geothermal, biomass, solar, natural gas, electric, industrial waste and centralized clean coal-fired heating in northern China in line with local conditions and addressed how to guarantee natural gas supply in the 'coal to gas' transition program.

Greener production will replace 74 million tons of bulk coal and will provide half the power used to heat North China by 2019, and the clean energy heating rate will reach 70 percent by 2021, reducing bulk coal consumption by 150 million tons, per NDRC estimates.

The northern regions the plan will cover are Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang and Qinghai.

North China uses coal for about 83 percent of its heat and natural gas, electricity, geothermal, biomass, solar and industrial waste for the rest. It consumes some 400 million tons of standard coal, 200 million tons of which are bulk coal, generating heat each year.