"We see tremendous business opportunities from the new law," the China Daily quoted Wang Yi, a senior company official, as saying.

Coal provides some 70 percent of electricity in China, the world's second-largest energy consumer and producer of greenhouse gases.

The state-owned company has started building two wind farms and a new facility that would harness steam generated from garbage and sewage treatment to produce power, the newspaper said.

The firm had budgeted 9 billion yuan to build the garbage-powered plant underway in eastern China and 10 others like it in other parts of the country over the next five years, Wang said.

Another 9 billion yuan would go towards constructing up to 30 biomass energy projects in major agricultural provinces, which use organic or woody material such as straw to make fuel or generate power.