According to a recent study carried out by GTM Research, titled 'China Wind Market Quarterly', China is on course to reach 150 GW of installed wind capacity by 2015, outstripping the government's goal of 100 GW by quite a margin.
The vast increase in installations will be achieved as a result of steady government support, and rising domestic demand.
China did feel the effects of the global financial slowdown in 2008, however its renewable energy sector has boomed, with the wind industry leading the way. In 2006 China had just 3 GW of installed wind capacity, around 4% of global capacity, yet since then it has installed over 50 GW of grid-connected wind power and 70 GW of total wind capacity, which now gives it around 35% of the global total capacity.
Related Article: Wind Energy: Swapping Turbines for Kites
One problem, and probably the main problem, that China faces is that most of its wind power installations are situated in several northern and western provinces that are sparsely populated, so cannot use all the electricity generated by the local wind farms, and lack the transmission capacity to carry the power to larger cities where demand is higher. In order to overcome this failing China has huge plans to overhaul its energy grid in the coming years.
By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More