HANGZHOU, April 2 -- China's first power plant producing electricity both from biomass power generation and photovoltaic power generation started its first phase operation on Thursday.

The Zhejiang Longquan Biomass Power Plant in east China's Zhejiang Province began operating its two biomass power generators, which boast a total installed capacity of producing 162 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year.

To reach the capacity, the generators need to consume 250,000 tonnes of biomass fuel, which is processed from rural waste.

The plant will see the installation of its 1.44-megawatt photovoltaic power generation system later this month. It is expected to go into operation 4 months later. The solar power generation is able to add 1.3 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year to the power grid, which is equivalent to the thermal power generation of burning 430 tonnes of coal.

On Thursday, Ji Maoqing, a farmer from Longquan City, Zhejiang, sent a truck of saw dust to the power plant. After going under scalage, the waste earn him 1,500 yuan (242 U.S. dollars).

Saw dust, along with straw and other agricultural waste, is the main raw material that the plant purchases from farmers to fuel the biomass power generation.

If recycled, rural waste has the potential to produce the biomass energy equivalent to thermal power generation from 656 million tonnes of coal a year, or half of the country's annual coal output.