Wind Power in China

Wind Power In China

At the end of 2011, wind power in the People's Republic of China accounted for 62 gigawatts (GW) of electricity generating capacity, and China has identified wind power as a key growth component of the country's economy. With its large land mass and long coastline, China has exceptional wind resources It is estimated China has about 2,380 GW of exploitable capacity on land and 200 GW on the sea. China aims to “have 100 gigawatts (GW) of on-grid wind power generating capacity by the end of 2015 and to generate 190 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of wind power annually”. Researchers from Harvard and Tsinghua University have found that China could meet all of their electricity demands from wind power through 2030.

By the end of 2008, at least 15 Chinese companies were commercially producing wind turbines and several dozen more were producing components. Turbine sizes of 1.5 MW to 3 MW became common. Leading wind power companies in China were Goldwind, Dongfang Electric, and Sinovel along with most major foreign wind turbine manufacturers. China also increased production of small-scale wind turbines to about 80,000 turbines in 2008. Through all these developments, the Chinese wind industry appeared unaffected by the global financial crisis, according to industry observers.

In 2010, China became the largest wind energy provider worldwide, with the installed wind power capacity reaching 41.8 GW at the end of 2010, but about a quarter of this was not connected to the grid. According to the Global Wind Energy Council, the development of wind energy in China, in terms of scale and rhythm, is absolutely unparalleled in the world. The National People's Congress permanent committee passed a law that requires the Chinese energy companies to purchase all the electricity produced by the renewable energy sector.(citation is incorrect)

As part of the environmental goals included in China’s 12th Five Year Plan (2011–2015) targets have been set for non-fossil energy to account for 11.4% of the total energy consumption, and for CO₂ discharge per unit of GDP to reduce by 17%.