Top-1000 Energy-Consuming Enterprises

China's 11th Five Year Plan, announced in 2005, established an ambitious goal of reducing energy intensity, defined as energy consumption per unit of GDP, by 20% between 2005 and 2010. One of the key initiatives for realizing China's 20% energy intensity reduction goal is the Top-1000 Energy-Consuming Enterprises program (Top-1000 program) which has set energy-saving targets for China's 1000 highest energy-consuming enterprises.

The Top-1000 program was launched in April 2006 by the Department of Resource Conservation and Environmental Protection of the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Bureau of Statistics, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the Office of National Energy Leading Group, and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The implementation plan provided guidance to the enterprises, calling on them to significantly improve their energy efficiency with the goal that energy intensity (energy used per unit of production) reach the level of advanced domestic production and that some enterprises attain either international or industry advanced levels of energy intensity.

The implementation plan further stipulated that the enterprises within the Top-1000 program should realize savings of 100 Mtce (2.9 EJ) between 2006 and 2010 from the expected 2010 energy consumption of these 1000 enterprises. The reported energy savings for the first year of the program (2006) indicate that it is on target to reach the program goal of saving 100 Mtce in 2010. The Top-1000 program could contribute to somewhere between 10% and 30% of the savings required to support China's efforts to meet a 20% reduction in energy use per unit of GDP by 2010.