China to treble wind capacity in 10 years

According to research announced yesterday (1 July) by consultancy firm GlobalData, China’s installed wind capacity will grow from 114 GW in 2014 to an estimated 347 GW in 2025.

GlobalData’s wind market update suggests China’s wind installation is likely to peak around 2022, but there are prospects for future growth in other parts of Asia and the Pacific.

The firm believes China’s rate of wind power growth will decrease from its almost twenty-fold increase in capacity since 2007 to the predicted three-fold increase in ten years.

GlobalData’s renewable energy analyst Harshavardhan Nagatham said: “The slowdown has been caused by the inability of China’s underdeveloped electrical grid to accommodate the increasing number of wind turbines in remote areas.

“Although recent government efforts have supported the expansion and upgrade of the grid, future wind installations will not grow as much as before and will range between 20 GW and 22 GW each year during the next decade.”

Momentum

The report comes after China’s Prime Minister Li Kepaing pledged to cap the country’s emissions by 2030. Speaking in Paris, the Mr Kepaing committed China to increasing its share of non-fossil fuels to 20% by 2030.

The research from GlobalData suggested global wind installations would continue to grow to reach around 960 GW by 2025, driven in particular by growth in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Nagatham added that substantial growth across the region was likely, with APAC wind installations forecast to increase from around 148 GW in 2014 to more than 437 GW in 2025, accounting for an estimated 45% of the global total.

China’s coal consumption fell for the first time in 2014 due to a rapid increase in renewable generation and energy efficiency improvements.

It is projected to overtake the US as the world’s leading wind-power producer in 2016, but still falls behind due to its inadequate grid infrastructure.

Matt Field