BEIJING, May 24 (Xinhua) -- With total installed capacity of 12million kilowatts, China has become the world's fourth country in wind power-installed capacity, an official said on Saturday in Beijing.

    "Concerning wind power-installed capacity, China is next only to the United States, France and Spain," Lu Yanchang, vice chairman of the China Science and Technology Association, made the above remarks at the fifth China Energy Strategy Forum.

    Wind power has become a main force in China's new energy development cause, said Lu, adding that the country had built more than 200 wind power plants as of 2008, with 12.8 billion kwh electricity generated.

    China's total wind power has accounted for 1.5 percent of country's total installed electricity capacity. The country will build more wind power projects before 2010, in east coastal areas, and vast western regions, according to Lu.

    North Inner Mongolia and Hebei have exploited wind energy earlier than other regions on the Chinese mainland.

    Inner Mongolia, covering 1.18 million square kilometers, boasts 100 million kilowatts of wind energy resources, with enormous white turbines standing high to capture the strong winds from the heartland of Mongolia and Siberia.

    The region is striving to increase installed capacity of wind power to more than 10 million kilowatts in 2010, almost half of that of the country's largest hydropower project at the Three Gorges, said Ya Saning, director of the region's economic commission.

    Hebei Province will also construct wind power plants with an installed capacity of more than 10 million kilowatts as of 2020, said Zhao Weidong, an official with the provincial Commission of Development and Reform.