Weaknesses In Chinese Wind Power

The world’s largest producer of carbon emissions has been doubling its wind power capacity every year since 2006; it was the world’s second-largest buyer of wind turbines in 2008. Yet, about 30% of its wind power assets are not in use–much of that not even connected to the transmission grid–a result of Chinese power companies turning to wind as the cheapest, easiest way to satisfy on paper government requirements to boost renewable energy capacity. Whether the massive new building push will be any more efficient is an open question, given that much of it is slated for out of the way places, mainly in the north, making it uneconomical to build the lengthy extensions to China’s grid that would be required to transmit the power to distant population centers.
China has been actively developing wind energy over the past three years. The country added 6.3 gW of capacity in 2008, doubling its total wind power capacity to 12.2 gW, in the process becoming the world’s second-biggest wind turbine buyer behind the U.S. and the world’s fourth-biggest producer of wind power after the U.S., Germany and Spain, according to the annual report of the World Wind Energy Association.

In July, the government of the arid northwestern province of Gansu began construction of a wind power station in the former Silk Road outpost of Jiuquan, the first of seven 10-gW wind power bases planned by provincial authorities around the country. The other six have yet to receive the green light from the country’s top planning authority, the National Development and Reform Commission.

Citigroup estimates China’s wind power capacity could easily grow to 130 gW by 2020. “Yet, the most important question is whether wind energy in China is efficient,” said Pierre Lau, Head of Asia-Pacific Utilities Research with Citi.

So far, the answer has been “no.”

To construct wind turbines in Inner Mongolia to capture the strong winds from the Mongolian and Siberian steppes seems logical at first glance. “However, most of the wind farms in Inner Mongolia are erected in remote places too far away from the transmission network and thus uneconomical for the grid to extend the cables to collect the wind power,” Pierre Lau of Citi said.

Forbes