Wind power installed capacity in China will more than treble from approximately 149GW in 2015 to over 495GW by 2030, representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9%, according to research and consulting firm GlobalData. The company’s latest report (Wind Power in China, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2016 – Capacity, Generation, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles) states that China has the highest wind power globally by far, accounting for a third of cumulative wind power capacity worldwide in 2015, followed by the US with 17% of the global share.
Supportive government policies that include an attractive concessional program and the availability of low-cost financing from government banks are the main reasons for the success of the Chinese wind power market. 13th Five Year Plan raised the 2020 wind target to 250 GW, and aims to shift focus from scale expansion towards quality and efficiency. The government has a number of financial incentives such as feed-in tariffs in place to continue the development of wind power. Despite China’s wind development achievements to date, the sector faces the key problem of its increasing inability to accommodate the rapid surge in the number of wind turbines in remote areas due to its underdeveloped electrical grid. The Chinese government announced that it will put new wind power projects approvals on hold in 2016 in its northern provinces such as Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang, as the country is faced with grid constraints such as wind power output, system load, power source structure, regulation capability, power transmission scale and operation methods.
