POWER April 2013 - 53

POWER IN CHINA
Wind Power Incidents in China:
Investigation and Solutions
China's installed wind power capacity has doubled for six consecutive years.
However, along with the increased capacity come wind power accidents,
incidents, and failures. Considering the sharply rising amount of wind
power, the authors examine and sort wind technology failures by type
and explore their causes in an effort to offer solutions.
By Zeng Ming, Xue Song, Li Ling-yun, Cheng Huan, and Zhang Ge, School of Economics and Management, North China Electric
Power University
C
hina has abundant and readily developable
wind resources. According to
relevant data, the exploitable on-land
wind energy resource represents a power
generation capacity of 2,380 GW; the offshore
wind energy resource is around 200
GW. China's wind resource is centralized,
and the wind energy potential of the " threenorth
area " (composed of north, northeast,
and northwest China) as well as the country's
southeast coastline and islands along
the coast accounts for 80% of that potential.
The geographic distribution of the wind resource
somewhat coincides with China's coal
resource, although it is generally not coincident
with load.
In 2011, some 11,409 wind turbines were
installed in China (excluding Taiwan), representing
17.63 GW of installed capacity. By the
end of 2011, the total capacity of wind turbines
in China equaled 62.36 GW, representing an
annual growth rate of 39.4% (Figure 1).
Compared with installed capacity, grid-integrated
capacity and grid-integrated output
are more effective ways to measure the quality
of China's wind power industry growth.
With the development of advanced technology,
grid-integrated capacity is increasing
annually, and rose from almost 31.6 GW in
2010 to 45 GW in 2011 (Figure 2).
The rate of growth in the development of
wind power is slowing, but grid-integrated
capacity is increasing, which indicates that
the number of projects not integrated with
the grid is falling. This suggests that China's
wind power industry is developing in a
healthy way, albeit gradually.
As grid-integrated capacity rises, so
too does wind power production. In 2007
wind generated 5.7 billion kWh and accounted
for 0.17% of China's total power
production. As the table shows, by 2011
wind power production stood at 73.2 billion
kWh and accounted for 1.55% of the
country's total electricity production.
April 2013 | POWER
1. Growing wind capacity. Newly added and total installed capacity in China between
2006 and 2011. Source: North China Electric Power University
Newly added
70,000
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
Total
62,360
44,730
25,800
18,930
12,000 12,800
1,2902,540
2006
3,310
5,850
2007
6,150
2008
2009
2010
2011
17,630
2. Grid-integrated wind capacity. Newly added and total grid-integrated wind generating
capacity in China between 2006 and 2011. Source: North China Electric Power University
Newly added
50,000
45,000
40,000
35,000
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
Total
45,000
31,590
17,600
13,990
8,390
4,200
1,0102,070
2006
2,130
2007
www.powermag.com
2008
2009
2010
2011
53
4,190
9,210
13,410
Grid-integrated capacity (MW)
Installed capacity (MW)

http://www.powermag.com

POWER April 2013

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