China’s Plans For Wind Power
By Paul Homewood
I came across this article while I was away:
The 10-year wind power outlook for China consists of steady annual capacity additions from 2017 to 2026 resulting in a cumulative grid-connected capacity of 403GW by the end of 2026. Annual grid-connected capacity from 2017 to 2020 will be less than 25GW due to curtailment and policy restraints. However, annual grid-connected capacity will increase post-2020, benefiting from an expanded availability of grid capacity.
Annual capacity additions in the short-term will decrease due to the depressed wind market in the traditional wind provinces in the Northeast and Northwest sub-regions. The NEA published the wind warning mechanism in January 2017 and assigned a red warning to provinces with severe curtailment. Nearly all the provinces that received red warnings are located in the Northeast and Northwest sub-regions. The level of curtailment in certain provinces is very high and will be difficult to decrease it to an acceptable level in the short-term. Therefore, wind growth in 2017 and 2017 will be concentrated in the few provinces in the Northern region with low levels of curtailment and in provinces in the Southern region with good wind resources and very little curtailment.
Development of China’s offshore wind resources is accelerating and will add GW-level capacity annually starting in 2018. Cumulative grid-connected offshore capacity will reach 26GW by the end of 2026, representing a CAGR of nearly 24% over 10 years. Most coastal provinces have set ambitious offshore targets in their respective local Thirteenth Five-Year Plans, and IPPs are becoming more active in offshore investment.
The National Energy Administration (NEA) set the wind power grid-connected capacity target at 210GW and the wind power generation target at 420TWh by the end of 2020 in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Wind Power published in November 2016. The NEA also introduced a green certification system to support the non-hydro RPS target by 2020. Capacity growth is no longer a government priority, with focus turning to the wind power generation target and to reducing the curtailment of wind power.
The NEA has reduced the onshore wind feed-in tariff (FIT) levels in three consecutive years from 2014 to 2016 to lighten the burden of subsidy funding for renewable energy. The government will publish at least two to three additional reductions to the onshore wind FIT level before 2023. Therefore, MAKE expects wind power to reach grid parity with high on-grid coal prices in certain provinces by the end of the 10-year outlook.
Steady additions, and a capacity of 403GW by 2026 sound impressive. But just what does it all amount to?
Below are the figures for 2016, per BP.
| Wind Capacity
GW |
140 |
| Wind Power Generation
TWh |
241 |
| Total Electricity
TWh |
6142 |
| Wind Capacity Loading
% |
20 |
Assuming the same loading, wind should be generating 706 TWh by 2026, which is 11.5% of the current total electricity generated.
However, China’s electricity output has grown considerably in recent years, and continues to do so. Last year it grew by 6%. BP’s Energy Outlook comes up with a more conservative figure of 3% per year. Using that, we get growth of 34% in ten years.
So we can expect total generation to be 8230 TWh by 2026. Wind output of 706 TWh would therefore only meet 8.5% of China’s power needs.
By contrast, wind power in the UK already contributes 9% of total electricity.
Hardly earth shattering then!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“Wind output of 706 TWh would therefore only meet 8.5% of China’s power needs.
By contrast, wind power in the UK already contributes 9% of total electricity.”
UP TO THIS QUANTITY WHEN THE WIND BLOWS. ZERO when the wind is not blowing. So people simply do not use electricity when the wind is not blowing?
Clap, clap, clap!
Whenever I try to bring up the ridiculousness of these projects for powering the world, inevitably the response I get is, “Well you have to start somewhere.” True, but even in a 20-year robust growth of the industry you still only end up with a small percentage of the overall electricity generation coming from wind and solar.
I like to throw in discussion of nuclear for good measure, just to piss the greenies off. Because without nuclear, any discussion about a real reduction in global emissions is void.
” So people simply do not use electricity when the wind is not blowing?”
That would be true for an isolated village with no storage capacity and not connected to the grid. But most wind farms feed into a grid where the electricity from wind becomes indistinguishable from electricity from hydro or coal, etc.
The non-wind generators have to be kept on standby for when there is no wind or too much wind. As a consequence there are no savings in capital costs from wind power
The key to understanding the numbers in the table is that GW (giga-Watt) is a measure of power (capacity), while TWh (tera-Watt hours) is a measure of energy. A power plant rated one GW will produce one GWh of energy in one hour.
Based on the values in the table I estimated comparative statistics for wind and non-wind energy sources.
For wind power, 1.7 TWh per year output per GW installed.
For non-wind power, 8.4 TWh per year output per GW installed.
Power plants that used other sources of energy (not wind) generated almost five times (4.89) as much electrical energy per installed GW of capacity compared to wind farms.
Except for isolated locations far from the grid, funding wind power wastes public resources that could be better spent on roads, schools, sanitation and clinics.
I think in the vulgar, and ‘wind’ is for me what my mother referred to, but dad our kid[s] and at school was known as a “fart”.
As far as I am concerned and I do see your point Paul [green power and the ‘Middle Kindom is mainly hyperbolic rot put about by the EU-UK green blob]……………..but I’m with Sheri, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans although that may produce some similar desired effect……….
😉
China plays with us, it finesses us via utilization of such crap treaties ala Paris where it China negotiated ‘we are a developing nation’ status and a fossil fuel waiver until the year 2050 or whatevah…………….
But all the way, going back to Kyoto, where at least Bush never signed that suicide note but by God the muppets in bliar’s government designed it [for crying out loud] and then came Milipeed and Bryony Worthington, Chris huhne and the final nails in the coffin hammered in by that very wierd thing – Amber Crudd. in cahoots a quid pro quo for the HO job, with mother theresa to move the green agenda on fast track to shutting down the very few installations which still can produce base load capacity in big numbers – ie COAL…………….ohh what’s that do I hear oooooooh it’s the Japanese laughing along with their eastern neighbours across the China sea.
I stick with it wind = farts = ruinables.
XGW-capacity is annual energy. Divide by 8,760 to get installed power capacity.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
BACK in the real world, coal-fired power expanding China has been “counting the cost of their disastrous wind powered experiment”
China 🇨🇳 “green-washing” at her finest…