风电转出绿色增长新空间 截至9月底累计并网容量达7亿千瓦Wind power creates new opportunities for green growth, with a cumulative grid-connected capacity of 700 million kilowatts as of the end of September

According to the latest data from the National Energy Administration, by the end of September, the cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power reached 201 million kilowatts. Among them, the installed capacity of wind power was 70 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 20.4%. Currently, China's wind power installed capacity has ranked first in the world for 16 consecutive years, and the export scale of wind turbines continues to rise.

Pan Huimin, Deputy Director of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, stated that since the beginning of this year, China's wind power has maintained stable and orderly development, with notable performance in continuously expanding installed capacity, steadily increasing the proportion of electricity generation, ongoing breakthroughs in technological innovation, and sustained expansion of international cooperation. This year marks the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, and the "15th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development" proposes four goals: total capacity, power generation, non-electric utilization, and reliable substitution. The future development of wind power is promising.

At present, the international geopolitical situation is unstable and there are many disruptive factors, making the energy transition more important than ever. Liang Zhipeng, Chairman of the Renewable Energy Committee of the China Energy Research Society, believes that the related challenges include four aspects: first, constraints such as the grid's absorption capacity limit the space for renewable energy to replace fossil fuels; second, power supply security still heavily relies on coal-fired power, severely restricting the space for renewable energy consumption; third, the earnings of renewable energy generation projects drop significantly after participating in market transactions; fourth, the growing industrial consumption demand differs from users' expectations for green and affordable electricity.

This year, many Chinese wind power equipment manufacturers have increased their investment in technological research and development, extending the operational life of wind turbines from 20 years to 25 years. It is estimated that this alone can increase the total electricity generation profit over the turbine's operational period by more than 56%, and reduce the levelized cost of electricity by 6% to 7%. To enhance the value of wind turbines over their full lifecycle, Sany Heavy Energy has released a 25-year design life wind turbine plan and a "15th Five-Year" service capability improvement plan. Lin Zhigang, Deputy General Manager of Sany Heavy Energy, stated that currently, domestic renewable energy power generation companies have low returns. Extending the service life of wind turbines and increasing full lifecycle revenue has become an industry self-rescue option. To achieve a 25-year long service life, the overall structure of the turbine must be redesigned for strength and fatigue durability.

The "15th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development" proposes that by 2030, the average credible output of wind and photovoltaic power nationwide should reach 8%, and the proportion of wind and photovoltaic power during peak summer and winter evenings should exceed 20%. This means that renewable energy must accelerate the shift from "intermittent and fluctuating" to "reliable and stable." Liu Ke'an, Vice President of CRRC Corporation Limited, stated that the key to reliable substitution lies in the high reliability of the system.

Regarding the direction of technological transformation in the wind power industry, Lou Yimin, Senior Vice President of Envision Energy, believes that, on one hand, wind turbines need to evolve from single power generation devices into controllable intelligent units within large source-grid-load-storage systems, predicting wind energy through meteorological big models and adjusting output according to electricity demand; on the other hand, wind power needs to deeply coordinate with energy storage to smooth output fluctuations and improve grid friendliness. It is worth noting that in the past, wind power installations mainly followed the construction planning of ultra-high-voltage power grids, and growth speed was constrained by the power grid construction cycle. With technological progress and iteration of development models, during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, wind power can be directly converted into industrial products such as green computing power and green fuels, freeing itself from the constraints of grid infrastructure and further opening up growth potential. Currently, wind power is not only a provider of clean electricity but also a source of green fuels, with green ammonia and green methanol becoming key solutions in "hard-to-decarbonize" sectors such as shipping and aviation.

[Source: Economic Daily]

[Editor: Xiao Neng]