The installed capacity exceeded 300 million kilowatts, ranking first in the world for 12 consecutive years——

How much potential is there for wind power in my country

　　Our reporter Wang Yichen

　　my country's wind power industry has reached a new level.

According to data released by the National Energy Administration a few days ago, my country's grid-connected wind power installed capacity exceeded 300 million kilowatts, doubling the end of 2016, 1.4 times the EU's total wind power installed capacity at the end of 2020, and 2.6 times that of the United States. It has ranked first in the world for 12 consecutive years. .

How much potential is there for my country's wind power to be tapped?

What are the bottlenecks in the development of the industry?

The main force to achieve the "dual carbon" goal

　　First in the world, it has become a bright label for wind power in my country.

At the end of 2010, the cumulative installed capacity of wind power in my country reached 41.827 million kilowatts, ranking first in the world.

Since then, wind power installed capacity has led the way, breaking through 100 million kilowatts for the first time in 2015; exceeding 200 million kilowatts in 2019; and this time it exceeded 300 million kilowatts, which took only 2 years.

　　Behind the 300 million kilowatts, my country’s wind power industry’s technological innovation capabilities have also rapidly improved. It has the capability of independent R&D and manufacturing of large-megawatt wind power complete machines and key core components. It has established an internationally competitive wind power industry system and low-speed wind power technology. Ranked among the top in the world, more than 90% of domestic wind power installed capacity use domestic wind turbines, and 10 MW offshore wind turbines have begun trial operation.

The integrated manufacturing of the entire industry chain has strongly promoted the continuous decline of wind power costs. In the past 10 years, the average cost per kilowatt of onshore wind power projects has dropped by about 30%. The competitiveness of the industry has continued to increase. The output of wind turbines has accounted for more than two-thirds of the global market share. Its status as the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer continues to be consolidated and strengthened.

　　The rise of the wind power industry has led to the rapid growth of a number of leading companies.

Longyuan Power has been the world's largest wind power developer since 2015, and Goldwind once became the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer with the largest annual new installed capacity.

Among the world's top ten wind turbine manufacturers in 2020, Chinese companies occupy seven seats.

　　Qin Haiyan, secretary general of the Wind Energy Professional Committee of the Chinese Renewable Energy Society, believes that wind power is the main force to achieve the "dual carbon" goal. If there is no disruptive new technological breakthrough in the future, the power system "decarbonization" will mainly rely on wind power and photovoltaic power generation.

At the same time, because the cost of wind power has been the same as that of traditional fossil energy power generation or even more economical, and has the potential to further reduce costs, the large-scale application of wind power will reduce the energy cost of the whole society and realize a more economical energy transition.

Adhere to both land and sea

　　With the slowdown in installed capacity growth, the wind power industry, which originally had a first-mover advantage, is facing the situation of being overtaken by the photovoltaic industry.

　　Vigorously developing offshore wind power has become an inevitable choice for the industry to break the situation.

my country has a natural advantage in the development of offshore wind power, with a coastline of 18,000 kilometers, a usable sea area of ​​more than 3 million square kilometers, and abundant offshore wind energy resources.

According to the preliminary results of the detailed investigation of wind energy resources by the China Meteorological Administration, the installed capacity of wind power is about 500 million kilowatts in the sea areas within the water depth line of 5 meters to 50 meters and the height range of 70 meters above sea level. Great room for development.

After years of steady development, my country's offshore wind power has the conditions for large-scale development, no matter in terms of the amount of developable resources, or in terms of technology and policy.

　　Recently, news on the construction of tens of millions of kilowatts of offshore wind power bases have been released in many places.

The Energy Bureau of Guangdong Province has recently launched the preliminary work for 10 million-kilowatt offshore wind power bases in western and eastern Guangdong; Zhangzhou, Fujian Province has proposed a 50 million-kilowatt offshore wind power base development plan; Shandong Province will also build 10 million-kilowatt offshore wind power bases and 100 billion-level Shandong Peninsula offshore wind power equipment manufacturing industry base.

　　Decentralized wind power is another important incremental market.

“my country’s wind energy resources are abundant and widely distributed. With the breakthrough of low-wind-speed wind power technology, most areas of my country have developed conditions for low-wind-speed resources. The resource potential for development is at least 1.4 billion kilowatts, and only 8% of them are currently used. Around that, the development potential is still huge." Qin Haiyan said.

　　Ren Yuzhi, deputy director of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, revealed that the "14th Five-Year Plan" will adhere to the simultaneous development of centralized and decentralized, simultaneous local consumption and outbound consumption, and simultaneous development on land and sea, and actively promote the "three The construction of large-scale onshore wind power bases and large-scale outsourcing in the "North" area will accelerate the development of large-scale offshore and deep-sea demonstration development, and vigorously promote the development of eco-friendly decentralized wind power in the central, eastern and southern regions.

Costs are expected to continue to drop

　　Under the "dual carbon" goal, wind power will usher in a period of development opportunities.

Although wind power has made impressive achievements in the past 10 years, it will face severe challenges in the future, such as parity on the grid, distribution and consumption, and grid-friendliness.

　　In the face of abnormal weather, the instability of wind power supply is fully exposed.

Wind power is one of the important options for European countries to achieve emission reduction targets and develop renewable energy power generation. However, since the summer of this year, the wind volume in Europe has weakened, which has hit European wind power.

Affected by the "wind disaster", the total wind power in the EU this summer decreased by 7% compared with last year. Among them, the wind power in Spain in September decreased by 20% year-on-year, triggering a surge in natural gas prices and electricity prices in Spain.

　　The construction of a new power system with new energy as the main body undoubtedly puts forward higher requirements for the flexibility of the power system.

Zhang Jianhua, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the National Energy Administration, said that it is necessary to strengthen the construction of peak-shaving power stations such as pumped storage and natural gas power generation, promote the transformation of coal power flexibility, and optimize the power grid dispatching operation mode.

Strengthen the construction of power grids, optimize the layout of the national power grid, improve the regional main grid, carry out the intelligent upgrade and transformation of the distribution network, and encourage users to invest in the construction of smart micro-grids that mainly absorb new energy.

Strengthen the coordinated development of source, grid, load, and storage, promote multi-energy complementation such as wind-solar complementation, water-heat complementarity, promote the coordination and synchronization of new energy power stations with the power grid, and give full play to the two-way adjustment role of the energy storage system.

　　In response to the consumption problem, Wang Dapeng, deputy director of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, said that the next step will be to improve the capacity of export and local consumption in the "Three Norths" area, and optimize the base and standardized development of wind power; The southwest region will coordinate the development of water, wind, and light integrated bases; focus on the development of wind power in the middle and southeast regions.

　　In the past 10 years, the average cost per kilowatt of onshore wind power and photovoltaic power generation projects has dropped by about 30% and 75%, respectively.

Compared with photovoltaics, wind power has weaker and weaker advantages on the cost side. Can it remain competitive in the future?

　　Experts predict that wind power efficiency can be greatly improved, and costs can be significantly reduced.

The construction cost of wind farms in the "Three Norths" area can also be reduced by about 30%.

At the same time, based on the intelligent operating system, the life of the fan can be extended to more than 30 years.

In 2023, the cost per kilowatt hour of wind power in China's "Three North" high wind speed regions will reach 0.1 yuan/kWh, and the cost of energy storage on the power generation side will also reach 0.1 yuan/kWh.