FEATURE - Windmills Turn in Power-Starved China
Date: 29-Apr-05
Country: CHINA
Author: Nao Nakanishi
And soon the tiny island, 330 km (200 miles) northeast of Hong Kong, will be home to China's first offshore wind farm as the world's seventh-largest economy seeks to end crippling power shortages and choking air pollution.
China's parliament passed a renewable energy law in February, which experts say should attract investors to clean power. The law, effective next year, sets tariffs in favour of non-fossil energy, such as wind, water and solar power.
"It's very exciting. Once you have the right policy in place, the industry really booms. That has been the case all around the world," said Robin Oakley, a Greenpeace campaign manager for climate and energy issues, based in Beijing.
"Because of its sheer size, if China enters the game -- both as the world's leading market and in the long run as the world's leading producer -- it could easily transform the whole renewable energy sector worldwide."
Greenpeace estimated Chinese wind power potential at 1 million megawatts (MW), more than twice China's current total installed power generating capacity of 440,700 MW.
But with capacity now only a fractional 600 MW and the primary source of power -- coal -- delivering 70 percent of China's electricity, there is a long way to go before the young wind power industry can establish a place in China's energy mix.
Still China's turn towards non-fossil energy comes at a time when the country is wrestling with its worst power crunch in decades. More than two-thirds of its provinces suffered blackouts last year due to a shortage of generators, coal and transport links.
It plans to expand its nuclear power industry. At the same time, China wants to boost renewable energy to cover 10 percent of its needs by 2010, raising its green capacity to 60,000 MW, including 50,000 MW of hydropower and 4,000 MW of wind power.
That is in line with the Kyoto Protocol, which came into force in February as the international community steps up efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming.
China, the world's top coal producer and consumer, is already the world's second-largest producer of greenhouse gases. Its notoriously dangerous mines aim to dig 2.2 billion tonnes of coal from the ground a year by 2010.
"OTHERS WILL FOLLOW"
Far from China's mines and hit hard by the power crunch, Guangdong became the first Chinese province last year to introduce fixed prices for wind energy, a policy common among countries with rapid growth in wind energy, such as Denmark.
"The security regarding the tariff is the number one issue for making sure wind development projects take place," said Wim Lansink, from Shantou Dan Nan Wind Power Co. Ltd., which is developing Nan'ao's 100-MW offshore wind farm.
"I do believe if it is successful here -- and it looks to be -- then other provinces will follow," the general manager told Reuters in Shantou, a coastal city in northern Guangdong.
Shantou Dan Nan, a joint venture between Dutch power utility Nuon and power authorities of Shantou city, has run a 24-MW wind farm on Nan'ao since 1998. It is developing five wind power projects in China, including two others in Guangdong.
Wind power could offer a quick solution to China's power woes as wind farms are relatively faster to set up, experts say.
China would benefit from rapid technological advances in the global wind power industry, on the back of annual growth of about 30 percent over the past decade, they said.
"We can erect a 150-200 MW plant in one year," said Jens Olsen, chief representative of Vestas Asia Pacific A/S, a unit of the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems A/S head-quartered in Denmark.
"If you build a coal-fired power plant, it usually takes three to five years. Nuclear power plants need even longer."
Experts said China, with its large land mass in the north and the west and a coastline stretching thousands of kilometres, was bless