BEIJING, April 24 (Reuters) - China needs to free up power and fuel prices and provide better protection for intellectual property if it wants to meet targets for cleaner, more efficient energy, a U.S. trade official said on Tuesday.

David Bohigian, assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce, is leading a group of U.S. companies hoping to win a slice of Chinese spending on renewables that he estimates could be worth up to $200 billion in the 13 years to 2020.

But low state-set prices for electricity make it hard for independent producers to break into the power sector and lax copyright standards worry firms with heavy investment in complicated clean technology, he told Reuters.

China has said it plans to eventually liberalise prices, but refuses to set a timeline. Bohigian said he did not get any concrete commitment when he raised the issue with policy makers.

"They realise that in order to meet their energy needs, they have to price it so people can enter the market profitably," Bohigian, whose brief covers market access and compliance, told Reuters after the meeting.

Beijing is sending out mixed messages by promoting ambitious energy efficiency targets -- it aims to cut the amount of fuel needed to generate each dollar of national income 20 percent by 2020 -- while keeping fuel prices low, he said.

"The best way to ensure that any sort of resource is wasted is to price it below market levels," he added.

Foreign wind power developers say low tariffs make it hard to turn a profit without selling credits earned by cutting carbon emissions and homegrown solar giant Suntech Power Co. <STP.N> only notches up around 10 percent of sales domestically.

The two countries were also at odds on intellectual property rights, a key concern because much of the technology behind clean and efficient energy is complicated and has taken huge investment of time and money to create, Bohigian said.

"The Chinese have asserted that their (protection of) intellectual property rights in the environmental field meet those needs. Our companies believe differently," he told an earlier news conference.

"(They) need to establish an environment where US companies can trust their partner's work to have technology transfer that's fair," he said. The two sides also discussed longer-term carbon sequestration projects but did not touch on global warming, Bohigian said.

China is set to overtake the U.S. as the world's top carbon dioxide emitter this year or next, and any commitment it makes to curb the output of greenhouse gasses will be a key driver for the market in clean technology.

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