China's Wind Power Sector Expected To See Tremendous Growth (18.9GW added in 2010)

[kristopher]

China's Wind Power Sector Expected To See Tremendous Growth
By Liu Yuanyuan, Contributor
April 26, 2011

Beijing, China -- The nuclear accident triggered by the devastating earthquake in Japan has created new market opportunities for China's wind power sector. According to a statistical report released by the Chinese Wind Energy Association, mainland China added 18.9 GW of new wind power capacity in 2010, a year-over-year increase of 73.3 percent, bringing the country's installed wind power capacity up to 44.7 GW and catapulting the country to first place globally for the first time, ahead of the U.S., in terms of installed wind power capacity.

At the end of 2010, the country had approximately 29.6 GW of wind turbines connected to the grid. For the past five years, grid-connected wind power installed capacity has nearly doubled every year. The country is on track to install more than 90 GW of wind power capacity by 2015 and 150 GW by 2020.

Compared with other new energies including nuclear power, wind power is safer, emits less carbon and is more environmentally friendly, say analysts. And given the recent events in Japan, wind power is less costly than nuclear power. Shi Lishan, deputy director of the department of new and renewable sources for the National Energy Board of China, revealed that the country is now focusing mainly on the development of onshore wind power, while, at the same time, it started construction of several large-scale offshore wind power plants last year.

Creating an Export Market

As set forth in the government’s five-year plan, from 2012 to 2016 the country expects to build and hopefully export 5-GW offshore wind turbines. An analyst at Donghai Securities expects China to increase exports of wind turbines over the next several years, driving the rapid growth of the country’s wind power sector...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/04/chinas-wind-power-sector-expected-to-see-tremendous-growth?cmpid=WindNL-Thursday-May5-2011

[FBaggins]

1. Are they cutting back on plans?

Last I read (4-6 months ago), they were expected to by at 230 GW of wind by 2020.

Maybe one figure is grid-connected and the other isn't. The difference is roughly the same ratio as the year-end 2010 figures they cite.

[madrchsod]

2. not here in the usa....

the kock bros and others fund a very good pr campaign against wind power.they are doing a great job in the counties in my area of northern il.

[kristopher]

3. There is more misinformation about renewables from the coal/nuclear industry than petroleum.

Petroleum seems to have moved the fight more to the halls of government and direct support for the "drill baby drill" movement. The flood of misinformation around renewables (as revealed in various public fora such as letters to the editors or reader responses to various posted articles online) is directly intended to support the assertion that renewable energy is incapable of meeting our climate change related energy needs and therefore we MUST have nuclear.

[jwirr]

4. So far Saudi Arabia and China are going in the right direction. When

do we get going a little faster?