Renewables take pride of place
In February last year a 13-megawatt offshore wind turbine, which had the largest single-unit capacity in Asia at the time, rolled off a production line in Fujian province.
Only nine months later the plant was dwarfed by a 16-MW offshore wind turbine assembled in Fujian and that was a world leader in terms of single-unit capacity. In June a 20-MW wind turbine made in Shandong province set another record.
All this underlines the progress China has made in developing renewable energy, and which has helped it greatly cut the cost of renewables, experts said.
Consistent and comprehensive policy support and the great importance attached to capacity building and production standards are among the things that have given China experience in promoting energy on a large scale, they said.
According to the National Energy Administration, the total capacity of gridconnected wind turbines in China stood at just 1.06 million kilowatts in 2005, and by the end of last year capacity was 365 million KW. In that time the country’s combined installed capacity for photovoltaic power rose from 70,000 KW to 392 million KW. Its proportion of the global total rose from less than 1.4% to more than 33%.
By the end of June installed capacity of renewable energy in China had exceeded 1.3 billion KW, surpassing the installed capacity of coalfired power for the first time.
The development of largescale renewable energy in China has significantly brought down the global cost of renewables, said Wang Weiquan, deputy secretarygeneral of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.
Thanks to China’s contribution, the cost of photovoltaic power generation is now as low as 1 cent for 1 kilowatthour of electricity in the Middle East, where the costs of land use and financing are relatively low, he said.
Wang attributed the remarkable achievement to consistent, systematic and tailor-made policies adopted at different stages of development. Driven by these policies, a broad market for renewable energy development was formed. This then boosted the development of upstream manufacturing industries and the entire industry chain, he said, citing the subsidized price for renewable energy, or the feed-in tariff, as an example.
The feed-in tariff, a surcharge on electricity bills, guaranteed solar and wind companies above-market prices for their energy, which helped attract many investors to the sector, he said. China also introduced a dedicated renewable energy law in 2005, has incorporated renewable energy development into its five-year plans since 1996, and has established a sound mechanism to guarantee the absorption of newly added renewable energy output, Wang said.
The country also set up the Renewable Energy Development Fund to support development of the sector.
Hou Yuhan, group marketing director of Goldwind Science and Technology, a Chinese wind turbine manufacturer, underscored the importance of “continuity, stability and sustainability” in the country’s policies for developing the wind energy sector.
“Since the 1990s China’s central and regional governments have introduced a slew of policies concerning the renewable energy sector, creating a stable policy environment and favorable conditions for wind energy development.”
The introduction of China’s dual-carbon targets in 2020 and the national policy framework to implement the goals “have propelled the renewable energy sector to a key development stage”, she said.
In 2020 China announced that it aimed to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and realize carbon neutrality before 2060.
The country has adopted a raft of new policies to guide the energy transition, and these have given priority to green, low-carbon energy development, scientific and technological innovation, institutional innovation, regulatory efficiency and international cooperation, Hou said.
International companies also invested in China, and these investments were mutually beneficial, Wang said. While those companies made profits in China, it managed to master the technologies it needed to develop the industry.
“The development of China’s wind power industry has been closely linked to the wind power technology acquired through international collaboration,” Hou said.