China On Track to Exceed Targets, Install 140 GW of Wind Capacity by 2015 | Hacker News Reader

China On Track to Exceed Targets, Install 140 GW of Wind Capacity by 2015

greentechmedia.com

34 pointsmtgx14 comments

This article is link bait + self promotion by GTM.

Having been involved for years in the energy industry I can assure anyone that GTM is not a known "research" company (hence not trustworthy). The "gold standard" for wind capacity installation, projections, etc., is the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), hands down. GWEC states in their most recent 2012 China report that "By 2015, the installed wind power capacity [in China] will reach 100GW."

Source: http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/China-Outlook...

China's installed capacity in 2011 was 62.4GW. In 2012 it is projected that another 15-18GW will be installed; that's 80.4GW by year end 2012 (on the high end). If 150GW is expected by 2015, a net average of 23.GW need to be installed per year. That installation rate is unrealistic due to manufacturing constraints.

I'm still shocked even with your more conservative numbers suggesting that China is merely installing 7-10 nuclear power stations (4x 500MW reactors I'm assuming) worth of wind power per year. I know they're enormous, but WOW.

I am very curious what kind of cost per kWhr they are able to achieve at such large scales of deployment when doing the manufacturing locally. I know that shipping and regulatory issues are major cost drivers in the US...

When are they starting with the thorium ones?

Regardless, it's interesting how China is accelerating past the US on the world stage. Clean energy, high speed rail, etc. So, much is accomplished in so little time. One example, that always sticks in my mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro

I wonder how that couple miles of the Second Avenue Subway is coming along?

Right now, on the energy side, one can't really compare the US and China. The US is an already developed country, with considerable infrastructure deployed during the past 50-100 years and well established incumbent players, a region with low/single digit growth, etc. China on the other hand is a huge market, until recently with little or no energy infrastructure, fuelled by a rapidly growing domestic consumption, etc.

China has the need to accelerate and be extremely fast in all aspects of its economy, otherwise it is risking not growing at all, with devastating effects to its economy (and the world).

It's easy to build infrastructure quickly when you don't have to bother with property rights, worker safety or environmental impact assessments.

Eminent Domain is a very real and oft-used legal power that is given, especially by individual states in the US to seize property for whatever "public use" those governments deem worthy, including (but not limited to) road widening, infrastructure (sewer, electric, telecom fibre) improvements, and even private enterprise that trumps individual rights "for the greater good".

Please don't think that China holds exclusive dominion over such a concept.

I don't know that the two would be quite the same in practice though. It's likely that public reaction would be more of an issue in the US, etc?

And if you have a virtually limitless supply of money.

If any embedded software hackers are interested in an exciting wind energy related job, check out: http://www.makanipower.com/careers/current-job-openings/

Some thoughts on the efficiency and economics of Chinese wind power:

Reported grid consumption of wind generated power was 100Twh or 100Gkwh. At the end of 2011 installed capacity (grid-connected) was about 47GW, which should have grown to about 60GW by the end of 2012. I will take 50GW as the average producing number, so on average each kW of installed capacity produced about 2000kwh worth of electricity. In other words the average wind mill runs about 2000 hours a year, slightly less than 6 hours a day. Compared to the load factor of a nuclear generator of 90% or better we need 4GW of installed wind power to replace 1GW of base load power (like nuclear).

At 5.5c per kwh of electricity (wholesale) the wind industry generated 5.5 billion dollars worth of economic value. Averaged over the assumed 50GW producing capacity that is about 11c per installed Watt. There should be some operating cost so let's say 10c net operating. Assume the equipment depreciates over 30 years then at $1 per W installed you can get about 6.7% return on asset; at $1.5 per W (current US cost) the return is only 3.3%; at $2 per W (2009 US) 1.7%. With 5% financing you can leverage the 6.7% ROA to 8.3% ROE by using 50% debt.

There was an extra 20Gkwh of abandoned wind generated electricity (or 20% of what is consumed) due to transmission/consumption limitations. So the potential economics could be better.

I used the unsubsidized wholesale power price of 5.5c per kwh as the proxy for the economic value of wind power. It can be argued that wind should be worth less because it is less reliable and tends to be located farther away from population centers. It can also be argued that wind should be worth more because it is clean. In reality wind power probably sells for more due to subsidy.

Wind power appears to be marginally to somewhat profitable in China assuming China can achieve lower all-in installation cost than the US, without explicit subsidy (same wholesale price) but with likely policy support (utilities would otherwise prefer more reliable/convenient power sources at the same price). Since US wholesale price is lower and installation cost higher, wind power would require subsidy in the US to be economical unless a much higher load factor than 6 hours per day can be achieved.

Capacity, when it's windy, which it isn't always. They should quote a range from min to max.

installed capacity (e.g. MW) != production (e.g. MWh)

The real question to ask here is how much of this is connected to the grid? China's current 5 year plan is trying to build the wires to connect this wind. As of 2012, barely 10% of all built wind was even connected to the grid...

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