China’s top coal producer China Shenhua Energy has started building its first offshore wind power plant

China’s top coal producer China Shenhua Energy Co Ltd said on Friday it has started building its first offshore wind power plant with an installed capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) as part of its clean energy development strategy.

The plant will generate 813.5 million kilowatt hour a year when connected to the grid, equivalent to 20 percent of annual electricity consumption in Dongtai where the plant is located, the group said on Twitter-like Weibo.

Once operational, the plant is expected to save 268,500 tonnes of coal and emit 590,600 tonnes less of greenhouse gas every year.

At the end of last year, Shenhua had an installed power capacity of 56,288 MW with wind capacity of 15.8 MW and hydropower capacity of 125.2 MW.

China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, plans to raise its non-fossil fuel portion of primary energy consumption by 2020 to 15 percent from 12 percent.