China has set its energy consumption annual growth target at averaged 2.5% during over 2016-2020, 1.1 percentage points slower than the 3.6% in 2011-15, according to the country’s newly released 13th Five Year Plan. The lower growth was set according to the new energy consumption trend because of China’s “new normal” economic growth, deputy head of the National Energy Administration Li Yangzhe said Thursday at a press conference, according to an NEA press release. Beijing has been happy with relatively lower GDP growth, with an expectation that the economy grew at 6.7% in 2016 and 6.5% in this year. As a result, the total energy consumption will be contained within 5 billion mt of standard coal equivalent by 2020. Meanwhile, the country also aims to reduce energy intensity — energy consumption per unit of GDP — in 2020 by more than 15% from 2015, according to the jointly released […]