July 25, 2008
Strong Chinese government policies, rising coal prices and improved technology have prompted a surge of investment into green energy, particularly wind power. Since 2005, the country’s wind generation capacity has increased by more than 100% a year. The government’s renewable energy policy aims to procure 15% of the country’s energy from non-carbon sources by 2020, twice the proportion of 2005.
Wind Power has taken off faster than the government planned. This year, policy makers had to double their wind power prediction for 2010, having reached the old goal of five gigawatts three years ahead of schedule. On current trends, it will almost definitely have to be doubled again.
“China’s wind energy market is unrecognizable from two years ago. It is huge. But it is not realized yet in the outside world, says Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council. He believes China might have already overtaken the US as the planet’s biggest turbine manufacturer. Given the ambitious plans for wind farms, it could also install the most new generating capacity by 2010. At the end of last year, China had six gigawatts of installed wind power generating capacity, covering 202 projects. Another 445 sites have been targeted for development in the near future – according to data from Azure International a consultancy in Beijing.
As in India and Brazil, investment in the industry is surging. These three countries' share of new wind financing in the world rose from 12% to 22% between 2004 and 2007. But the growth is from a tiny base. The industry remains minuscule compared with coal. China's wind industry is still dominated by five state-owned power generation utilities and a handful of other energy-related state-owned enterprises. Competition is heating up. The turbine industry used to be dominated by foreign manufacturers, such as Vestas of Denmark, Gamesa of Spain and GE of the US. But last year for the first time, domestic manufacturers grabbed more than 50% of the market.
The biggest player by market share is Goldwind, which is based in Urumqi and piloted much of its technology in nearby Dabancheng. The firm says it has grown by more than 100% for each of the past eight years. Now it produces its own big 1.5 megawatts turbines and is developing a model with twice the capacity that it aims to start testing by 2009.
Goldwind is now selling overseas. Goldwind recently made its first sale of turbines to Cuba and it and other domestic manufacturers have been in talks with potential buyers in Pakistan, the Philippines and South Korea. “It is reasonable to expect Chinese wind turbines to find receptive export markets in the near term despite the financing and insurance related challenges stemming from limited track-record for many products,” said Sebastian Meyer, director of research and advisory at Azure International. The biggest growth, however, is likely to be in the domestic market. In addition to the current six gigawatts of generating capacity, Azure estimates that a staggering 130 gigawatts is in the pipeline in China.
Established turbine manufacturers continue to boost production even as new entrants try to squeeze their way into the market. If all of their plans are added together, China’s new production capacity could surge to 11 gigawatts this year – almost three times the amount installed last year.
Rising demand for electricity and tighter safety regulations in mines have driven up the price of domestic coal, which supplies 70% of China’s energy needs. Domestic prices are now so high that many power plants in Guangdong and elsewhere in southern China import coal from Australia. This year, the big five utilities are bleeding money because coal costs have been steadily rising. They cannot pass costs on to their customers because of government regulation of power prices.
Even so, wind energy produces a kilowatt-hour of electricity at about twice the cost of a Chinese coal-fired power plant. Even with the recent price rises, coal remains king in China. To meet the demands of the fast growing economy, power plants and factories burn two billion tones of coal each year, about a third of the world’s total.
This is why China has overtaken the place US as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and it is unlikely to fall back to second place for decades. Wind is also far les favored than hydro-electricity. Take the dams out of the energy mix and renewable will barely manage 1% of all power generation by 2010 and only 3% by 2020 even in regions with well-developed grids. That is a low proportion compared with the world leader Denmark, which gets about 20% of its electricity from wind.
Long term, the future of wind power is secured by government commitments to renewable energy. The authorities are increasingly alarmed by global warming, which is melting glaciers in Tibet and Xinjiang that provide drinking water to ten of millions of people. Extreme weather also led some regions to suffer the worst snowstorms and droughts in decades. Last week, officials in Sichuan province warned that summer flooding was likely to start earlier and be the biggest in a decade because of abnormally high rainfall in May.
Environmental groups say the country needs to set more ambitious goals for wind power. With the right government policy, Greenpeace predicts that China's installed wind power capacity could reach 122 GW by 2020, equivalent to the capacity of five Three Gorges Dams, or 10% of the total installed capacity of the country.
In the near future, more and bigger turbines will be spread over a wider area of China. As well as manufacturing more wind power equipment than any other country, analysts predict that China may soon be the world leader in installation.
"China is catching up fast," said Meyer. "The market is ripe for China not replicating what Europe and US did in the past, but doing it better."
Source: http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=103689&keybold=renewable+energy+technology+research
Strong Chinese government policies, rising coal prices and improved technology have prompted a surge of investment into green energy, particularly wind power. Since 2005, the country’s wind generation capacity has increased by more than 100% a year. The government’s renewable energy policy aims to procure 15% of the country’s energy from non-carbon sources by 2020, twice the proportion of 2005.
Wind Power has taken off faster than the government planned. This year, policy makers had to double their wind power prediction for 2010, having reached the old goal of five gigawatts three years ahead of schedule. On current trends, it will almost definitely have to be doubled again.
“China’s wind energy market is unrecognizable from two years ago. It is huge. But it is not realized yet in the outside world, says Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council. He believes China might have already overtaken the US as the planet’s biggest turbine manufacturer. Given the ambitious plans for wind farms, it could also install the most new generating capacity by 2010. At the end of last year, China had six gigawatts of installed wind power generating capacity, covering 202 projects. Another 445 sites have been targeted for development in the near future – according to data from Azure International a consultancy in Beijing.
As in India and Brazil, investment in the industry is surging. These three countries' share of new wind financing in the world rose from 12% to 22% between 2004 and 2007. But the growth is from a tiny base. The industry remains minuscule compared with coal. China's wind industry is still dominated by five state-owned power generation utilities and a handful of other energy-related state-owned enterprises. Competition is heating up. The turbine industry used to be dominated by foreign manufacturers, such as Vestas of Denmark, Gamesa of Spain and GE of the US. But last year for the first time, domestic manufacturers grabbed more than 50% of the market.
The biggest player by market share is Goldwind, which is based in Urumqi and piloted much of its technology in nearby Dabancheng. The firm says it has grown by more than 100% for each of the past eight years. Now it produces its own big 1.5 megawatts turbines and is developing a model with twice the capacity that it aims to start testing by 2009.
Goldwind is now selling overseas. Goldwind recently made its first sale of turbines to Cuba and it and other domestic manufacturers have been in talks with potential buyers in Pakistan, the Philippines and South Korea. “It is reasonable to expect Chinese wind turbines to find receptive export markets in the near term despite the financing and insurance related challenges stemming from limited track-record for many products,” said Sebastian Meyer, director of research and advisory at Azure International. The biggest growth, however, is likely to be in the domestic market. In addition to the current six gigawatts of generating capacity, Azure estimates that a staggering 130 gigawatts is in the pipeline in China.
Established turbine manufacturers continue to boost production even as new entrants try to squeeze their way into the market. If all of their plans are added together, China’s new production capacity could surge to 11 gigawatts this year – almost three times the amount installed last year.
Rising demand for electricity and tighter safety regulations in mines have driven up the price of domestic coal, which supplies 70% of China’s energy needs. Domestic prices are now so high that many power plants in Guangdong and elsewhere in southern China import coal from Australia. This year, the big five utilities are bleeding money because coal costs have been steadily rising. They cannot pass costs on to their customers because of government regulation of power prices.
Even so, wind energy produces a kilowatt-hour of electricity at about twice the cost of a Chinese coal-fired power plant. Even with the recent price rises, coal remains king in China. To meet the demands of the fast growing economy, power plants and factories burn two billion tones of coal each year, about a third of the world’s total.
This is why China has overtaken the place US as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and it is unlikely to fall back to second place for decades. Wind is also far les favored than hydro-electricity. Take the dams out of the energy mix and renewable will barely manage 1% of all power generation by 2010 and only 3% by 2020 even in regions with well-developed grids. That is a low proportion compared with the world leader Denmark, which gets about 20% of its electricity from wind.
Long term, the future of wind power is secured by government commitments to renewable energy. The authorities are increasingly alarmed by global warming, which is melting glaciers in Tibet and Xinjiang that provide drinking water to ten of millions of people. Extreme weather also led some regions to suffer the worst snowstorms and droughts in decades. Last week, officials in Sichuan province warned that summer flooding was likely to start earlier and be the biggest in a decade because of abnormally high rainfall in May.
Environmental groups say the country needs to set more ambitious goals for wind power. With the right government policy, Greenpeace predicts that China's installed wind power capacity could reach 122 GW by 2020, equivalent to the capacity of five Three Gorges Dams, or 10% of the total installed capacity of the country.
In the near future, more and bigger turbines will be spread over a wider area of China. As well as manufacturing more wind power equipment than any other country, analysts predict that China may soon be the world leader in installation.
"China is catching up fast," said Meyer. "The market is ripe for China not replicating what Europe and US did in the past, but doing it better."
Source: http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=103689&keybold=renewable+energy+technology+research
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