(November 23, 2010) The Wall Street Journal puts the World Bank’s “measured praise” of China’s green energy policies in context.

China is making progress in meeting targets to get 15% of its energy from non-fossil fuels by 2020, but it needs to improve and expand hydropower generation and deal with inefficiency in its wind-power sector, the World Bank said Tuesday.

The bank said in a report that China should improve interprovincial trade in renewable energy and better promote green electricity schemes.

“China has achieved remarkable progress in developing renewable energy during the last three decades,” Ede Ijjasz, World Bank China Sector Manager for Sustainable Development, said in a statement accompanying the report.

China is already planning a massive expansion of its hydroelectric power sector in its 12th five-year plan, which starts in 2011, despite worries that such schemes can cause environmental and social problems.

Its rapidly growing wind sector is also struggling due to a lack of connections to the country’s electricity grid: At the end of 2009, 30% of China’s wind farms weren’t grid-connected, according to the National Energy Administration.

This is a major problem for China, which is planning a fivefold increase in wind-power generating capacity to 200 gigawatts in 2020 from 34 gigawatts in mid-2010.

Read the full story here.