Liu Zhenya, the general manager of China's biggest grid firm, said at a forum in Shanghai that new government plans would also involve the nationwide deployment of smart grid technology over the next decade, the official Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.

China's renewable energy capacity stood at about 212 gigawatts at the end of last year, around a quarter of the total. Wind accounted for 16 gigawatts, twice as much as the year before, but critics have complained that many new turbines have stood idle because of insufficient grid capability.

Smart grids allow utilities to avoid outages from intermittent electricity sources such as wind and solar farms or hydropower plants. The State Grid said at the end of last month that it would spend 250 billion yuan ($36.88 billion) on smart grid technology this year.

Liu said the combination of smart grids and renewables could reduce China's total carbon dioxide emissions by more than 10 billion tonnes by 2020.