Wind energy is capable to power entire China if they update rural grids and raises the subsidy for wind energy.
China has become a global leader in wind energy and stands in fourth position currently in the world in installed capacity.
Northern and western Chinese regions hold large potential for wind energy, specifically the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Gansu, and Tibet.
China’s new wind resources model suggests that winds blowing in China are powerful enough to generate low-carbon electricity that eliminates much of the power sector’s future greenhouse gas emissions, according to researchers from Harvard University and Beijing’s Tsinghua University.
The current demand for new electricity generation in China will be reduced, which is roughly a gigawatt a week, said, Michael McElroy, lead author, study published in the Science.
As China’s demand for electricity increases an estimated 10 percent each year, the country needs additional 800 GW during the next 20 years. With current wind energy payments of 0.4 RMB per kilowatt-hour, wind energy can displace 23 percent of traditional electricity.
In that case, China can eliminate as much as 0.62 giga tons of annual carbon dioxide emissions, or 9.4 percent of the country’s current annual emissions.
Wind energy can supply all of China’s 2030 electricity demands, but wind contract prices were increased to 0.516 RMB per kilowatt-hour.
Rather than increase carbon dioxide emissions by 3.5 gigatons each year through 2030, the analysis determined that wind energy could replace 640 GW of coal-fired power, which will reduce emissions by 30 percent and require an investment of some 6 trillion RMB.
This is a large investment, compared to the size of the Chinese economy and the scale of the investments in both generating capacity and the grid infrastructure that will be required to accommodate future growth in power demand, says the report.
However, the windiest areas are less populated with low electricity demands are low. High voltage transmissions lines are to be connected to areas of eastern China, where demands are very high.
In present scenario, wind farms are struggling to incorporate into the grid. Chinese law gives priority to renewable power access to the grid, but due to restricted grid capacity wind energy’s ability to reach customers is limited, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has set a 2010 wind energy target of 5 GW, which the country surpassed in 2007.
Wind energy supplied 12.2 GW of installed capacity last year, about 0.4 percent of China’s total electricity supply. Recently, China announced that 100 GW of wind energy capacity will be installed by 2020 and that renewable energy will supply 40 percent of the energy market by 2050.
The recent lift is obliged to the 2005 renewable energy policy, which supported providers with 10-year contracts subsidies. Recently, NDRC has the renovated the law to differentiate wind energy tariffs for various regions throughout the country.
Last year, Chinese government issued tax rebates for state-owned wind turbine manufacturers to stimulate the domestic wind industry. Of the 70 Chinese manufacturers that produce wind turbines, more than 20 were formed last year, according to the GWEC.