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Powering wind power

By Zhang Qi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-30 07:54

Workers assemble wind turbines at Goldwind Science & Technology Co, Ltd in Urumqi in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Goldwind is the largest maker of wind power generating turbines in China. [Agencies]

China will not stop investing in large wind farms despite insufficient electricity demand amid the economic downturn, said a senior official from National Energy Administration (NEA).

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Shi Lishan, deputy director of Renewable Energy Department of NEA recently told China Business Weekly that the current electricity oversupply does not alter plans to build more wind power bases.

The country's goal to raise its wind power generation capacity to 100 gW is still achievable, added Shi.

At the National Energy Work Conference in early February, Zhang Guobao, director of NEA said China will build several wind farms with capacity of over 10 gW in the Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang autonomous regions and Gansu, Hebei and Jiangsu provinces over the next decade.

China Wind Energy Association Vice-President Shi Pengfei confirmed that China has started building six 10 gW wind power bases in these regions and provinces.

Gansu province's Jiuquan wind power base will have a 15 gW capacity by 2015, he said.

The Xinjiang wind power generation base in Hami will produce 20 gW of electricity. Inner Mongolia will have a 20 gW and 30gW wind power base in western and eastern part of the region, respectively.

Both Hebei and Jiangsu will each have wind power facilities capable of generating 10 gW but 70 percent of Jiangsu's wind power capacity will come from offshore operations.

If all the wind power bases finish construction by 2020, wind will account for 3 percent of the country's overall power generation capacity, up from 1.1 percent in 2008, said Shi, adding these facilities will cost one trillion yuan.

Domestic wind power generation capacity grew by 4 gW to 10 gW in 2008, the second fastest rate in the world, behind only the US.

Hebei is planning to attract 100 billion yuan worth of investment for its wind farm projects, which will give the wind-rich province a total wind power capacity of 12 gW by 2020, a senior provincial energy official said.

The province, one of the country's key wind power bases due to its closeness to North China's grid load center, will jointly fund the massive energy projects with nation's top power firms and other investors, said Zhao Weidong, vice director of the Hebei Provincial Development and Reform Commission's Energy department.

The province's total installed wind power capacity reached 1.1 gW in 2008, the second most in the country, after Inner Mongolia.

The country's five leading power generating groups, China Huaneng Group, China Datang Group, China Guodian Group, China Huadian Group and China Power Investment Group are all involved in wind farms projects in the province, said Zhao.

The largest existing projects are ones by China Energy Conservation Investment Corporation, which installed a 300 MW wind farm, and some slightly smaller ones build by Guohua Energy Investment Company (a subsidiary of China's top coal miner Shenhua Group) and Hebei Construction Investment Corporation, said Zhao.