BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Beijing's rural work authorities said Wednesday that the capital city will phase out coal use in all villages in the plain areas by the end of 2018.

Households in 450 villages will switch from coal to gas or electricity for heating this year.

In 2013, Beijing started to reduce coal consumption and the switch from coal to clean energy, part of its efforts to improve air quality in recent years.

In 2017, Beijing switched 901 villages with a total of 369,000 households from coal to clean energy.

So far, a total of 950,000 households in 2,500 villages in Beijing have shifted to clean energy, helping reduce coal consumption by about 3 million tonnes per heating season.