China's cumulative installed capacity of offshore wind power ranks first in the world for two consecutive years
Offshore Wind Comes Green (Economic Focus)
Core reading
Recently, the world's first 16 MW ultra-large-capacity offshore wind turbine was connected to the grid in Fujian, marking a new level in the R&D, manufacturing and operation capabilities of China's offshore wind power large-capacity units. Promote the reduction of electricity costs, develop key components, and develop to the deep sea... In recent years, China's offshore wind power industry has developed rapidly and has entered a stage of large-scale development. Facing the future, with the continuous breakthrough of technology and the continuous advancement of cross-industry integration development, the offshore wind power industry will go further and more stable.
In the northern waters of Fujian, a 16-meter-high white fan rotates in the wind, sending green electricity to thousands of households. Recently, the world's first <> MW ultra-large-capacity offshore wind turbine was successfully connected to the grid here, marking a new level in the R&D, manufacturing and operation capabilities of China's offshore wind power large-capacity units.
By the end of 2022, China's cumulative installed capacity of offshore wind power has exceeded 3000 million kilowatts, ranking first in the world for two consecutive years, accounting for about half. Extend the timeline, and by the end of 2012, the cumulative installed capacity was about 39,2017 kilowatts; By the end of 279, the cumulative installed capacity was about <>.<> million kilowatts. It can be seen that although China's offshore wind power started late, it has developed rapidly and has entered the stage of large-scale development.
The 14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development proposes to "actively promote the large-scale development of offshore wind power" and "promote the innovation and demonstration application of offshore wind power in the deep sea". What are the advantages of China's development of offshore wind power? What else needs to be done next? The reporter conducted an interview.
The development momentum is strong, and the economy is greatly improved
To understand the 16 MW offshore wind turbine "Big Mac", you may wish to look at a few keywords: "large", a single blade is 123 meters long, and the impeller sweeping area is about the size of 7 football fields; "High", the height of the hub center is 152 meters, which is equivalent to 50 floors high; "Green" can output more than 6600 million kilowatt-hours of green electricity per year, which can meet the annual electricity consumption of 3,6 families of three. Not only that, its development and application has also overcome a series of key technical problems such as ultra-long flexible blades, large spindle bearings, and miniaturization of ultra-large capacity generators.
From the 2007.1 MW wind turbine built in the Bohai Sea in 5 with a blade length of less than 40 meters, to today's 16 MW and 18 MW "Big Mac" wind turbines have been launched one after another, the large-scale unit has become a significant trend in the development of offshore wind power. "The application of larger wind turbines can save sea area, improve power generation efficiency, reduce installation and construction costs, etc., and then promote the overall cost of electricity for the project." Yu Chenguang, general manager of Goldwind's offshore business unit, said.
Yu Chenguang calculated an account for reporters: taking the 100 million kilowatt offshore wind power project as an example, if an 8 MW unit is used, 125 units are needed; With 16 MW units, only 63 units are needed, which can save more than 35% of the sea area and reduce the tower cost by more than 40%. In addition, the efficiency of the 16 MW wind turbine has been improved, and the power generation is more than 8% higher than that of the two 6 MW wind turbines. Overall, it is estimated that the cost of electricity for the project can be reduced by about 12.5%.
This is just a microcosm of the rapid development of offshore wind power in China. Qin Haiyan, Secretary-General of the Wind Energy Professional Committee of the China Renewable Energy Society, introduced that at present, China has the independent design, research and development, manufacturing, installation, commissioning and operation capabilities of large-capacity offshore wind turbines. Looking at manufacturing, China's production of generators, hubs, towers and other castings and forgings, blades, gearboxes, bearings and other key parts accounted for more than 70% of the global market. Looking at the installation, in September last year, China's self-built 9,2000-ton offshore wind power installation platform "Baihetan" was delivered and put into operation, which greatly enhanced the construction and installation capacity of offshore wind turbines.
Relying on large-scale development and technological progress, the economy of offshore wind power development has been greatly improved. Qin Haiyan introduced that from 2010 to 2021, the cost of offshore wind power in China fell by nearly 56%. At present, the average kWh cost of offshore wind power projects has dropped to about 0.33 yuan/kWh, and it is expected to achieve comprehensive parity by the end of the <>th Five-Year Plan.
Facing the future, offshore wind power has broad development prospects. On the one hand, development has resources. China has a mainland coastline of about 1,8 kilometers and is rich in offshore wind energy resources. "China's offshore wind energy resources at an altitude of 150 meters, within 200 kilometers offshore and less than 100 meters in water depths is 27.8 billion kilowatts. At present, the cumulative installed capacity of offshore wind turbines is only more than 3000 million kilowatts, with a utilization rate of less than 1.1%, and the future development potential is huge. Qin Haiyan said. On the other hand, there is room for inclusion. China's power load is concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, but the energy resources are mainly concentrated in the western and northern regions, and the development of offshore wind power near the coastal areas can realize the coordinated development of "electricity from afar" and "electricity from around".
According to the "14th Five-Year Plan" renewable energy development plan, China will promote the development and construction of 10 million kilowatt-level offshore wind power bases in the Shandong Peninsula, Yangtze River Delta, southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Beibu Gulf, etc., promote the concentrated continuous development of a number of million-kilowatt-level key projects, and promote the deep-sea offshore wind price demonstration and offshore energy island demonstration projects in combination with the development and construction of the base.
Break through key technologies and promote industrial clustering
The wind turbine comes from CRRC Zhuzhou Motor, and the blades come from Sinoma Technology... The world's first 16 MW offshore wind turbine host is composed of tens of thousands of components, and the key components have been 100% localized. During the development process, Goldwind cooperated with dozens of enterprises, universities and research institutes, efficient upstream and downstream collaboration of the industrial chain, and deep integration of production, education and research, laying a solid foundation for the development of the wind power industry.
The spindle bearing is the heart of the wind turbine. When the three giant blades with a total weight of more than 3 tons rotate, the bearings must ensure that they can run smoothly for a long time, which means that the machining error of a bearing with a diameter of 100.3 meters cannot exceed 2.0 mm.
"Bearing companies have never made such large-size bearings before, and we have accumulated technology in this area and shared with them the load, torque and other relevant information required to meet the reliability of wind turbines. It took more than 9 months for the bearings to be delivered smoothly, ending the history of China's inability to develop super-large capacity offshore wind turbine spindle bearings. Yu Chenguang said.
Intelligent application to improve product performance. In the Bohai Sea, Shandong Energy and Power Group's 90,32-kilowatt offshore wind farm is operating in an orderly manner, providing 5.3 billion kilowatt-hours of green power every year. "The project applied adaptive power increase control technology to identify state parameters to sense changes in wind conditions and unit operation status in real time to ensure optimal power generation performance, and the power generation capacity of a single unit can be increased by about <>%." Li Wei, Secretary of the Party Committee of Shandong Energy and Power Group, introduced. For some projects of typhoon-resistant fans, the intelligent control system can also ensure that the blades are always at the minimum force angle to avoid vortex-induced vibration of the blades.
Cluster development to improve supply chain resilience. In Shantou, Guangdong, the international wind power innovation port project is stepping up construction, in the future, it will gather wind power turbines, blades, gearboxes, generators, bearings and other whole industry chain manufacturing enterprises, as well as inspection and testing laboratories and large-scale scientific research equipment, forming four integrated wind power industry clusters of "integration of R&D and design, integration of process flow, integration of production and manufacturing, integration of testing and certification".
"Large wind turbines with large generators and gearboxes are large in size and inconvenient for land transportation, relying on the Shantou International Wind Power Innovation Port, which will help the export of offshore wind power equipment and services and reduce logistics costs." Yu Chenguang introduced. Different from other wind power cluster projects, Shantou International Wind Power Innovation Port breaks through the "wall" between enterprises and enterprises, which is equivalent to a super-large factory building, and the processes in different workshops are efficiently circulated and transportation links are reduced. After the equipment is manufactured, it can also be tested in the nearest experimental center to improve the iteration speed and provide strong support for China's offshore wind power technology innovation and large-scale unit development.
Advance to the deep sea and promote cross-industry integration
Currently, 70% of the world's potential offshore wind resources are located in deep waters deeper than 60 meters. Moving from offshore to deep sea is an inevitable trend in the development of offshore wind power.
In May this year, China's first deep-sea floating wind power platform "CNOOC Guanlan" was integrated into the Wenchang Oilfield Group Power Grid, opening a new milestone for delivering green power to offshore oil and gas fields. As China's first floating wind power platform with a working sea area more than 5 kilometers from the coastline and a water depth of more than 100 meters, the completion and operation of the "CNOOC Guanlan" has increased the independent development capacity of China's offshore wind power from less than 100 meters to more than 50 meters.
Mi Lijun, president of CNOOC Research Institute, introduced that in the shallow sea, the fan is inserted deep into the seabed through a steel pipe or jacket to fix the fan; In the deep sea, the foundation of this structure becomes too large, and the cost performance will be greatly reduced. "The floating platform can break the limitation of fixed installation conditions of operating water depth and seabed, and effectively expand the development of deep offshore wind energy resources." Mi Lijun said.
However, at present, the development of China's deep-sea floating wind power still faces some challenges. For example, the domestic industrial chain of high-end products such as mooring lines and cables of floating wind power is not complete, and the accumulation of operation and maintenance data and experience is relatively insufficient; In terms of cost, floating wind power projects have a high cost, and the average cost of electricity is about 3 times higher than that of traditional fixed offshore wind power, which is still in the early stage of commercialization, and it is urgent to explore disruptive new technologies and efficient development models to move towards the stage of scale.
According to relevant plans, China will promote the innovation and demonstration application of floating wind turbine foundation and offshore flexible DC transmission, and strive to start the construction of China's first floating commercial offshore wind power project during the "2025th Five-Year Plan" period. In Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Guangdong, Guangxi and other areas with good resources and construction conditions, combined with the construction of base projects, promote the construction of a number of million-kilowatt-level deep-sea offshore wind power demonstration projects, and strive to complete one to two affordable offshore wind farm projects by <>.
Many interviewees said that with the acceleration of offshore wind power development and the expansion into the deep sea, the corresponding approval process and sea use policies can be further optimized, and the overall coordination mechanism of marine, meteorological, maritime, environmental protection and other departments can be improved, and overall planning can be carried out to promote the early start of construction of qualified projects.
At the same time, the industry still needs to maintain a reasonable pace of development. Qin Haiyan believes that offshore wind power technology is in a rapid iteration, if the existing technology is used quickly, not only the cost is high, the risk is large, but also the wind energy resources can not be used most effectively, resulting in waste. Therefore, the main tone of offshore wind power development in the 14th Five-Year Plan is still prudent, and scale should not be blindly pursued.
The offshore wind power industry should go further and more stable, and cross-industry integration development is the direction of exploration. In the Wenchang Oilfield Group, by creating a new model of integrated development of offshore wind power and offshore oil and gas, the four fuel power stations of the oilfield cluster and the "CNOOC Guanlan" wind power platform are integrated into a whole to achieve green and low-carbon development of offshore oil and gas. "In the future, we can promote the combination of offshore wind power project development with marine ranching, seawater hydrogen production, sightseeing, etc., to achieve the three-dimensional development of 'offshore granary + blue energy', and help solve the bottleneck problem of single marine resource development." Qin Haiyan said.
Reporter Ding Yiting
(People's Daily)