2010年中国风电展望2010 CHINA WIND POWER OUTLOOK

1. Current Status of Global Wind Power In 2009, despite the ongoing international financial crisis, the global wind power industry continued to expand rapidly, achieving an annual growth rate of 41%. The European Union, the USA and Asia dominate global wind power development. China ranked first in the world for newly installed capacity. According to statistics compiled by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), total installed capacity of global wind power reached 158 GW, a cumulative growth rate of 31.9%. The global wind power industry has not only become an important part of the world energy market but is also playing an increasingly important role in stimulating economic growth and creating employment opportunities. According to GWEC, the total output value of the installed capacity of global wind power has already reached 45 billion euros and the number of people employed in the industry was approximately 500,000 in 2009. By the end of 2009 more than 100 counties around the world had started developing wind power, and more than 17 countries each had over 1 GW of cumulative installed capacity. The top ten countries for cumulative installed capacity were the USA, China, Germany, Spain, India, Italy, France, Britain, Portugal and Denmark. Asia became an important new market in 2009, exceeding the levels in both America and Europe and mainly stimulated by China and India. Newly installed capacity in China was 13.8 GW and the cumulative installed capacity reached 25.8 GW. 2. Status of Wind Power in China 1) Wind resources China has a vast land mass and long coastline and is rich in wind energy resources. Studies show that the potential for exploiting wind energy in China is enormous, with a total exploitable capacity for both land-based and offshore wind energy of around 700-1,200 GW. Other assessments suggest even higher figures up to over 2,500 GW. Wind power therefore has the resource basis to become a major part of the country’s future energy structure. Compared with the current five major countries for wind power, the extent of wind resources in China is close to the USA and greatly exceeds India, Germany and Spain. Wind energy resources are particularly abundant in the southeast coastal regions, the islands off the coast and in the northern part (northeast, north and northwest) of the country. There are also some places rich in wind energy in the inland regions. Offshore wind energy resources are also plentiful. The geographical distribution of wind energy resources is mismatched with the electrical load, however. The coastal areas of China have a large electrical load but are poor in wind energy resources. Wind energy resources are plentiful in the north, on the other hand, but the electrical load is small. This brings difficulties for the economic development of wind power. 2) Market overview In 2009, the Chinese wind power industry was a global leader, increasing its capacity by over 100%. Its cumulative installed capacity now ranks second in the world. Its newly installed capacity was the largest in the world. The country’s equipment manufacturing capability also took first place in the world. Both the newly installed capacity in the country and China’s wind turbine output accounted for roughly a third of the global total. The total number of newly installed wind turbines in China in 2009, excluding Taiwan Province, was 10,129, with an installed capacity of 13.8 GW. China thus overtook the USA for new installations. The cumulative installed capacity reached 25.8 GW, in the fourth consecutive year that had seen a doubling in capacity 3) Industry and Supply Chain China’s wind turbine equipment manufacturing industry has developed rapidly and its industrial concentration has further intensified. Domestic manufacturers now account for about 70% of China’s supply market and are beginning to export their products. The manufacturing industry for wind power equipment is clearly divided into three levels, with Sinovel, Goldwind and Dongfang Electric (all among the world’s top ten suppliers) in the first ranking and Mingyang, United Power and XEMC in the second. These are followed by a range of smallermanufacturers. Driven by the development trends in international wind power, the larger Chinese wind turbine manufacturers have also begun to enter the competition for large-scale wind power equipment. Sinovel, Goldwind, XEMC, Shanghai Electric Group and Mingyang are all developing 5 MW or larger turbines and can be expected to produce competitive and technically mature machines. One concern for the industry, however, is the quality of its products. The general view is that China’s domestic wind power equipment will receive its supreme test in 2011 and 2012. If it passes this test successfully, it will mean a qualitative leap forward. Although China now has an established wind turbine manufacturing supply chain, including producers of all the main parts, it is still lacking a fully developed network of ancillary services, such as certification bodies and background research and development. 4) Offshore prospects Serious investigation effort is being committed to the prospects for offshore wind development around China’s long coastline. In 2010 the first offshore project was completed – 100 MW at Shanghai's Donghai Bridge, with 34 Sinovel 3 MW turbines. According to plans prepared by the coastal provinces, the installed capacity of offshore wind power is planned to reach 32,800 MW by 2020. 5) Developers The top three developers of wind parks in China are Guodian (Longyuan Electric Group), Datang and Huaneng. All three are large state-owned power supply companies. Most investment and project development work is undertaken by power supply companies who have a commitment under national law to steadily increase their proportion of renewable energy. 6) Geographical Distribution By the end of 2009 a total of 24 provinces and autonomous regions in China had their own wind farms. There were over nine provinces with a cumulative installed capacity of more than 1,000 MW, including four provinces exceeding 2,000 MW. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is the leadregion, with newly installed capacity of 5,545 MW and a cumulative installed capacity of 9,196 MW. 3. National Energy Policy At the end of 2009, the Chinese government made a political commitment to the international community at the Copenhagen Conference on climate change that nonfossil energy would satisfy 15% of the country’s energy demand by 2020. This will require an unprecedented boost to the scale and pace of future clean energy development, including a new orientation towards wind power development. Wind energy is encouraged by a range of laws and regulations, the most important being the Renewable Energy Law, originally introduced in 2005. This report includes details of the latest changes to this and other statutes affecting wind power development. 1) Wind Power Bases A major part of the Chinese government’s commitment to wind power involves the creation of seven “GW-scale wind power bases”. The seven bases, each with a potential for at least 10 GW of installed capacity, are located in the east and west of Inner Mongolia, Kumul in Xinjiang, Jiuquan in Gansu, Hebei, the western part of Jilin, and the shallow seas off Jiangsu. Planning the development of these bases started in 2008 under the leadership of the National Energy Bureau and is progressing fast. According to the plan, they will contain a total installed capacity of 138 GW by 2020, but only if the supporting grid network is established. A significant problem is that many of these bases are located in remote areas with a weak transmission grid and at a long distance from China’s main electricity load centers. There is also the issue of how large quantities of variable wind power are integrated into a grid network dominated by inflexible coalfired power stations. 2) Price Support Mechanisms Pricing policy is a key factor affecting the level of active investment by developers and market growth. China’s support mechanism for wind power has evolved from a price based on return on capital and the average price of electricity through a competitive bidding system for wind park development contracts to a fixed price with variations based on differences in wind energy resources. Introduced in 2009, the fixed price system establishes a benchmark price for land-based wind power based on dividing the country into four categories of wind energy resource areas. There is no doubt that the introduction of the regional fixed price policy has been a positive step in the development of wind power in China and is stimulating stronger growth.