China’s clean energy push targets sandy, rocky reaches for solar and wind power bases

President Xi Jinping says work is under way on the first phase of projects to generate about 100GW in all
But, even as provinces vie to burnish renewables credentials, balancing demand and costs is likely to remain a challenge

Energy

Echo Xiein Kunming

Published: 10:30pm, 13 Oct 2021

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China – already a world leader in renewable energy production – aims to “vigorously” expand its solar and wind power projects to achieve climate targets.

Delivering a keynote speech at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) Leaders’ Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the country would continue to “vigorously develop renewable energy”, and aimed to make speedy progress in developing large wind power and photovoltaic bases in sandy and rocky areas and deserts.

“Construction of the first phase of projects with an installed capacity of about 100 gigawatts started recently,” Xi said via video link on Tuesday.

Xi’s remarks came after Premier Li Keqiang at a State Council meeting last Friday emphasised the need for the speedy building of large-scale wind and solar PV power projects, as well as “peak shaving” power sources – stressing the urgency of safeguarding energy supplies even as China reeled from a widespread power crisis blamed on coal supplies.

China is at the centre of global demand and supply for renewables, having accounted for around 40 per cent of global capacity growth for several years, an International Energy Agency report said in May.

And last year, China’s share rose to 50 per cent for the first time due to a rush to complete projects before government subsidies ended.

By the end of 2020, China had 281.5GW of wind generation capacity and 253.4GW of solar, according to the National Energy Administration.

Xi pledged in December that China would raise the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 25 per cent by 2030 and increase total installed wind and solar capacity to 1,200GW over the same period.

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“China has for several years been at the top of the table of investments in new renewables. The scale of the new projects is impressive, and their impact on the statistics of global power capacity additions will depend on the speed of completion, but most likely will be very significant,” Giacomo Luciani, scientific adviser for the master’s degree in international energy at Sciences Po Paris, said.

Last September, Xi said China was aiming for peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Since then, several provinces have proposed to add the building of clean energy bases to their social and economic development plans through to 2025, involving a total installed capacity of over 400GW.

According to Chinese energy industry website BJX News, 19 of China’s 31 provinces and regions have proposed to build such bases – numbering 41 in all, each with an installed capacity of 10GW.

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These include Inner Mongolia in the north, Gansu, Qinghai and Shaanxi in the northwest, Xinjiang in the west, and the three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.

In the deserts of Inner Mongolia’s Alxa League prefecture, construction on a 1.6GW wind farm and a long distance transmission line to Shandong province started in August, marking the first step towards building a 10GW wind farm in the region.

By 2030, Alxa League aims to have one each of 10GW wind, solar and thermal power bases, as peak shaving resources aimed at preventing short-term spikes in demand.

Photovoltaic modules at a solar power plant near Golmud in Qinghai province. Photo: Bloomberg

Neighbouring Gansu province, meanwhile, completed building the world’s largest onshore wind farm in the Gobi desert in July. Located in the famous Jiuquan satellite launch centre, it is China’s first 10GW wind power base. Gansu aims to expand the base and build six more.

The 100GW clean energy projects President Xi mentioned are scattered around the country, Yang Fuqiang, a research fellow at Peking University’s Research Institute for Energy, pointed out.

The scale may be even bigger than India’s entire installed wind and solar capacity, but it is not a huge figure considering China’s 2030 climate targets.

“China is committed to increasing installed wind and solar capacity to 1,200GW by 2030, and the industry expects the capacity to be as much as 1,500 to 1,800GW [by then],” Yang said.

“The country’s current wind and solar capacity stands at about 500GW. That means we still have to have 1,000GW to 1,300GW of newly added capacity by 2030, and 100GW is not a big number taking such a scale into account.”

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Yang believes a big part of the newly added renewable power projects should be rooftop solar panels or wind energy distribution in eastern China, with its large urban centres and factories where much of the energy is consumed.

“Renewable power should be sent out together with other dispatchable sources of electricity, or the stability and safety of the grid will be affected,” said Yang, referring to the fact that it is easier to adjust the power output of coal-fired and hydro power plants.

Muyi Yang, senior electricity policy analyst at Ember, an independent climate and energy think tank in the UK, said network constraints would be a key factor.

“This means that the development of these projects needs to be better coordinated with the grid companies, to ensure that necessary grid infrastructure can be also developed,” he said.

Wind power plants in the Gobi desert in Gansu province. Photo: Shutterstock

Storage options, however, are limited and very expensive, as is long distance transmission, Luciani pointed out.

Yang at Peking University said a large amount of the renewable energy generated in the western region should be consumed locally, not exported to eastern provinces via long distance transmission.

“One solution would be to relocate the high energy consumption and high emission projects to the western provinces where they can run on renewable power,” he said.

“This would help the western provinces develop their economy and utilise their abundant renewable energy sources, and the costs would be lower.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: remote areas to get solar, wind power facilities