IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 9

Wind
Battles
Coal for
aCCess to
China's Grid

China Photos/Getty imaGes

Coal interests oppose
technologies and rules
that would prevent
the waste of pollutionfree power

The 16th of October marks
the start of heating season in
northern China. Traditionally
that means firing up coal boilers and
pumping excess heat from big coal-fired
electric plants to residences and businesses. This year, another heat source
will join the mix: wind power. District
heating systems across northern China
are preparing to use small injections of
heat from electric boilers that will be
soaking up power generated from the
region's robust overnight winter winds.
Wind-to-heat demonstration projects,
including installations in Hebei, Inner

Mongolia, Liaoning, and Xinjiang, will
offset only a little coal. But their real
raison d'être is to demonstrate a strategic sink for northern China's massive
wind farms, whose output is increasingly being crowded out of the electric
power market by coal-fired turbines and
has nowhere else to go.
China's selective shutdowns of wind
power hit record levels last year, and
the country is likely to smash those
records in 2016. Curtailment of wind
farms squandered 15 percent of China's
wind energy potential in 2015, and those
losses surged to 21 percent during the

Slow-wind winter: This Inner Mongolia
wind farm was built to serve populations to the
east. But in winter, wind power is curtailed in
favor of coal power, which provides heat as well.

first half of 2016, according to China's
National Energy Administration (NEA).
Solar farms also face rising curtailment;
10 percent of their output went unused
last year.
Experts say wind-to-heat and other
technical solutions are ready to reverse
China's curtailment trend, but Beijing
and regional governments have yet to
implement the policy changes required
to support them-policies that would

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

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OCT 2016

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09



http://SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum October, 2016

IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 1
IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 2
IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 3
IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 4
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IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 8
IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 9
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IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 72
IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - Cover4
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