Beijing upping the ante on wind energy

The Chinese city of Chaozhou in Guangdong has plans to begin construction on its massive 43.3 gigawatt (GW) offshore wind farm within the space of a few years.

Information from the city’s most recent five-year plan states that the location of the wind farm is ideal with winds strong enough to run the turbines between 43 per cent and 49 per cent of the time, a figure that is high for the industry. At 43.3 GW of power generating capacity, the offshore wind farm will be capable of churning out as much power as the entirety of Poland or Argentina.

For comparison, China added 16.9 GW of offshore wind capacity in 2021. This one plant, set to be complete in just three years, would dwarf that by a factor of 2.5.

No price tag for development

China has the largest fleet of offshore wind turbines in the world, according to Bloomberg. An equally impressive statistic of this planned wind farm is likely its price tag, which wasn’t divulged in the five-year-plan.

Days ago, China’s President Xi Jinping said in a speech that the country’s shift to reach zero carbon emissions would be tempered with energy security in mind.

“Based on China’s energy and resource endowments, we will advance initiatives to reach peak carbon emissions in a well-planned and phased way, in line with the principle of getting the new before discarding the old,” Jinping said last week.

However, he suggested that fossil fuels wouldn’t meet a hasty death at the hands of renewables at the expense of energy security.

Wind energy ambitions

China’s wind power prospects are nevertheless ambitious with deals being done across the globe. One of China’s wind turbine manufacturers, Goldwind is in advanced talks to build a wind turbine factory in Brazil to service the local Brazilian market.

China has also just finished production of a wind turbine that has the largest rotor diameter in the world at 827 feet and is capable of single-handedly generating 63.5 million kWh per year and servicing 30,000 three-person households.