Over the past decade, China has been greening its electric power system faster than any other industrial power. But China is also continuing to pump out more greenhouse gases than any other other country. Is its green transformation happening fast enough? Hao Tan and John A. Mathews dig deep into the 2016 data and present an awesome picture of the stunningly large Chinese electric power sector. Courtesy Asia-Pacific Journal.
We have been tracking China’s green shift across the power sector now for several years.1 The 2016 data are now in, released by the China Electricity Council and the National Energy Administration.2 The new data reveal a strong continuation of China’s green shift within the power sector as greening trends at the margin exceed blackening trends. In other words, even as China’s 7 percent annual growth and its growing coal consumption continues to drive the output of the world’s leading producer of greenhouse gases, China’s domestic dependence of power generation on fossil fuels, with their threat of pollution and energy insecurity, is diminishing.
The headline results are that in the year 2016, China’s total electric power capacity increased to just over 1.6 trillion watts (1.65 TW), with water, wind and solar sources accounting for 34% — up from 32.5% in 2015. There is a consistent trend here that goes back for more than a decade. Since 2007, China’s dependence on WWS sources has risen from 16% to 25% in 2016 in terms of electric generation, and from 20% to 34% in terms of electric power generating capacity
It is difficult to overstate the significance of these trends. They mean that in the largest electric power system in the world, in the country that currently has the highest carbon emissions, there is under way a significant green shift that is comparable to the best in the world. Of particular significance is the fact that this process is driving down costs of green energy — for China and the world — and becoming the planet’s dominant business for production and export of green technology and green products.
Examining the power generation sector, as in previous years we wish to focus on the leading edge (changes in terms of capacity added, electricity generated and investment) as distinct from the system as a whole. In capacity addition and electricity generation, the year 2016 saw it greening faster than it is continuing its black trajectory. The investment in clean energy, however, fell from its level in 2015, due to reasons we will discuss below.
It is of course disappointing that China actually added some coal-burning power capacity in 2016 and generated more thermal electric energy than in the year 2015
In 2016, additional capacity amounted to 125 GW (more than two billion-watt power stations added each week). Of this, thermal sources (mainly coal-burning) added 53 billion watts (53 GW) while WWS renewables sources added 64 GW, well in excess of thermal sources. Of the new capacity added in 2016, WWS sources accounted for 52%, and thermal sources for just 43%. The rest is the addition in nuclear power generation capacity (5%). So while China is still adding a billion-watt power station burning coal each week, it is adding wind turbines and solar farms at an even greater rate.
In terms of electricity actually generated, in 2016 China generated 5,990 TWh of electricity (around 6000 TWh or 6 trillion kWh), 5% up on 2015, which is lower than the economic growth in the year (6.7%). In fact, the growth of electric generation has been lower than economic growth in the country since 2014, revealing a new trend that China may start to delink its electricity consumption from economic development. The delinking is partly a result of a change of the economic structure towards an economy more based on service and high-value manufacturing activities, and partly due to growing energy efficiency.
Total electricity generated from WWS sources amounted to 1488 TWh (around 1.5 trillion kWh), up 11.4% on the total for 2015. To give a sense of the vast scale of China’s renewables generation, this sum of 1488 TWh is comparable to the total electricity generated by Germany, France and the UK combined.3 Looking at the margin, i.e. at the additional electricity generated in 2016, there was more additional electricity generated from WWS sources (152 TWh) compared with that in 2015, than from thermal sources (102 TWh).
China invested US$ 132 billion (885 billion yuan) in new power supply systems in the year 2016, with power generating facilities accounting for US$51 billion (343 billion yuan) and investment in the grid for US$81 billion (543 billion yuan). Within the category of power generating facilities, thermal sources accounted for US$18 billion (RMB 117 billion yuan) of new investment, with hydropower and wind power accounting for US$22 billion (61 billion yuan) and US$13 billion (90 billion yuan) respectively, plus US$7.6 billion (51 billion yuan) of investment in nuclear power. Even without accounting for investment in solar power, the data for which are currently not available, the investment in power generation facilities based on renewable sources (water and wind) far exceeded that on thermal power generation facilities (151 billion yuan vs 117 billion yuan).
China’s black electrical system remains a potent source of carbon emissions even as it greens at the margin
The bottom line: we see that once again, in 2016 the increases in capacity, in electricity generated and in investment all showed green sources outranking black, thermal sources at the margin – where the electric power system is changing. g. Even as China continues to expand its consumption of energy based on black thermal sources (although in a diminishing rate), its green consumption is growing even more rapidly.
But the great question remains: is the greening proceeding fast enough? China’s black electrical system remains a potent source of carbon emissions even as it greens at the margin. And the immediate pollution costs continue to mount. Our analysis aims to elucidate the rate and direction of China’s greening – but it cannot undo the damage already inflicted and the further damage that is likely to ensue as thermal power continues to be generated. Although China is greening its power system at a rate that is unprecedented for industrial countries, it could doubtless further accelerate the process with more concentrated policy and market guidance.
The 2016 results
As before, we check the data on power generation showing results for 2016 as published by China Electricity Council. The data revealing trends in electric generating capacity, in actual electric energy generated and in investment, are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Power generation and changes, China, 2015-2016
1. Generating capacity
First, in terms of electric power generating capacity, we note that China’s is now by far the largest electric generation system on the planet. It had grown to a capacity of 1.5 trillion watts in 2015 – as compared to 1.17 trillion watts in the US in the same year, and lower levels for EU countries and Japan. The total capacity in 2016 reached 1.6 trillion watts, with year on year growth of 8% — meaning that currently China’s capacity additions still outpace the country’s overall economic growth rate. However, much of the additional capacity is owing to the completion of previously initiated projects in the pipeline. As the investment data indicate, the capacity addition is likely to moderate in the next years, partly due to the change in the Chinese economic structure towards less energy-intensive, more value added economic activities, and also the effect of improvements in energy efficiency.
It is China’s overall rate of renewable energy-based electricity generating capacity additions that is so striking. In Figure 1 we show that China increased its generating capacity from water, wind and sun from 20% in 2007 to 35.5% in 2016 – or a 14.5% increase in a decade. The chart shows very clearly the direction in which China’s power generation system is headed.
The individual items for water, wind and sun capacity additions in 2016 (and over the decade to 2016) also need to be noted. The addition of 17 GW of wind power capacity was large, as is the cumulative total of 150 GW – although not as large as capacity additions in 2015 (about 35 GW), and not as large as claimed by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
In fact the GWEC claims that China’s wind power capacity additions in 2016 were 23 GW, bringing global installed capacity to 487 GW (nearly half a terawatt). GWEC claims that China added 23.3 GW in 2016 and reached a cumulative total of 169 GW – but the more cautious figure put out by the NEA and CEC in Jan 2017 is likely to be more accurate.4 In any case, the target for wind power capacity to be reached by 2020 as issued in late 2016 by the 13th FYP for energy, at 210 GW or more, seems a safely conservative target and one likely to be exceeded, given that China had already reached a total of around 150 GW by 2016.
The buildout of China’s wind power capacity continues to be impressive, as revealed by the growth over the past decade (Fig 2)
Figure 2. China wind power capacity, 2007-2016 Source of primary data: China Electricity Council |
The capacity of solar power added in 2016 was truly impressive, notching up a gain of 34 GW for 2016, more than doubling the addition in 2015 (16 GW), and reaching a cumulative total of 77.4 GW. (According to GlobalData the world’s cumulative solar PV capacity reached 271.4 GW in 2016, with China accounting for 19.7%.5) The expansion of solar-based electricity is highly significant, especially given there was little solar power generating capacity in the country before 2010. The 13th Five Year Plan for energy in China foresees only a modest 2020 target for solar power of 110 GW – a target that is widely viewed as very likely to be exceeded since it implies less than a further doubling between now and 2020.
China’s wind and solar power companies continued to perform very well in international competition in 2016. China has 7 out of the world’s top 8 solar PV companies; and has 4 out of the top 10 onshore wind turbine manufacturers in 2016, according to the latest data from GlobalData (for solar PV companies) and BNEF (for wind manufacturers) respectively. All the top eight solar PV companies are based in East Asia; while most of the top 10 wind manufacturers are European and Chinese firms.
Table 2 The top solar PV companies6 and the top onshore wind manufacturers in the world7
*Combined total capacity for Gamesa/Siemens in 2016: 5.8 GW |
As for hydropower, this continues to be the dominant non-thermal source of power in China, aided by gigantic installations like the Three Gorges Dam system, some of which have been criticized for their adverse impacts on riparian ecosystems and local communities. But China is approaching the limits to its hydro power additions, with the year 2016 seeing only 12 GW added, bringing the installed capacity to 332 GW. The 13th FYP for energy foresees a target for hydro capacity in China of 340 GW by 2020 – a target that appears to be realistic, and also reflects the fact that China is approaching its limits of damming rivers to exploit their hydro capacity. (But note that hydro engineering is now a Chinese speciality, and it can be expected that Chinese hydro companies are bidding strongly for hydro projects around the world.)8
2. Electricity generated
China is the world’s largest generator of electric energy. The total generated in 2016 was 5990TWh (or billion kWh), up 295 TWh over the energy generated in 2015. The additional electricity generated was only 5.0% higher than the amount generated in 2015 – a strong indicator that China is indeed decoupling its power production from economic growth. It is of course disappointing that China actually added some coal-burning power capacity in 2016 and generated more thermal electric energy than in the year 2015 – a point we shall return to below. Over the period between 2010 and 2016, however, the total electric power generation grew decisively faster than the thermal electric power generation, with the former increasing by 70% while the latter by 48%.
The data on investment in renewable-based electricity generation capacity in 2016 is disappointing
In terms of the total electric power system, China is still much more ‘black’ than green. In 2016 its WWS sources accounted for 25% of total electric energy generated, while thermal sources accounted for 4288 TWh, or 71.6% of China’s total electricity generated. The rate of decline of thermal sources is nevertheless impressive – falling from 82.4% of electricity generated in 2008 to 71.6% in 2016 – an 11% drop in 10 years.9
While the share of fossil fuel-based electric power generation is not declining as fast as the decline in its share in generating capacity (which reached as low as 62.5% of total installed capacity in 2016 and is on target to reach 50% green capacity by the late 2020s) due to the relatively lower capacity factors of renewable energy technologies, the former is still on target to reach a tipping point of thermal electric energy falling below 50% in the early 2030’s.
However, curtailment continues to be a major challenge to further expansion of WWS-based electricity generation.10 According to the data from NEA, the total curtailment in wind power generation in 2016 amounted to almost 50 TWh, increasing from 34 TWh in 2015, although the situation improved in the second half of 2016 over that in the first half of the year. The curtailment issue in the solar power sector was also concerning. The curtailment rate in five provinces in China, where about 40% of the country’s total solar PV capacity is located, reached 20%, with 7 TWh of power generation being curtailed.
In January 2017 the NEA announced that 104 planned or under-construction coal plants were being suspended, amounting to 120 GW of thermal capacity being decommissioned
China is taking three main measures in response to the challenge, which have implications for investment in the power sector over the next few years.11 Those include: first, orderly development of renewable-based electricity generating capacity, especially in areas where curtailment is particularly severe; second, investment in long distance transmission capacity of the grid and development of micro gird access; and third, construction of pumped storage stations to improve the grid’s energy storage capacity.
On the other hand, the Chinese government has also recently taken dramatic measures to correct the surge of construction of coal-fired power stations in the previous year.12 As per the NEA’s directives, a number of coal-fired power generation projects that had been previously approved, including many that were already under construction, were cancelled or suspended in 2016 and early 2017. Meanwhile, according to a media report, only 22 GW of new coal-fired power generating capacity was approved for construction in 2016, including only 6GW in the second half of the year, a significant drop compared with the 142 GW of coal-fired power generating capacity approved for construction in 2015.13
3. Investment in new energy systems
The data on investment in renewable-based electricity generation capacity in 2016 is disappointing. According to the CEC and NEA, investment in hydropower stations and wind power stations dropped by 22% and 25% respectively from the levels of 2015, and investment in thermal power facilities stayed at the same level with respect to the previous year. These developments reflect a more cautious approach taken by investors facing rising demand of electricity in the country due to concerns that power generated by their renewable energy projects would not be able to be sold in the market when completed, but also partly result from the rapidly falling costs of power generation equipment, especially those in the area of renewable energy such as wind turbines and solar PV.
A widely quoted source of investment data is the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The BNEF data on investment in clean energy covers a number of sectors, including renewables, low carbon services such as finance, legal and other services and supports for clean energy, and energy efficiency technologies. According to the BNEF, China invested US$88 billion in the broad area of clean energy (including renewables) in total in 2016, a 26% fall compared with the 2015 level of US$119 billion.14
However, renewable energy investment levels in China can be expected to pick up over the next several years if the targets as set out in the Renewable Energy 13th Five Year Plan are to be achieved.15 According to the Plan, total investment of 2.5 trillion yuan ($US375 billion) on renewable energy is required over the period between 2016 and 2020, including 700 billion yuan on wind power, one trillion yuan on solar, 600 billion yuan on hydropower, and the rest for biomass power, biogas, geothermal energy, solar water systems etc. This would translate to about 500 billion yuan (US$75 billion) of investment per year on average.
Developments involving coal
China has been struggling with its coal dependence for many years now, and the year 2016 saw further demonstrations of central planners’ determination to get off coal as principal fuel source. The 13th FYP for energy released at the end of 2016 set an important standard in setting an overall coal consumption cap of 4.2 billion tonnes (reiterating the cap first announced in the 2014-20 Energy Development Strategy Action Plan). As revealed in Fig. 3 China’s coal consumption peaked in 2013 at 4 billion tonnes, and it has been decreasing each year (although at a rate that moderated in 2016 over 2015), while electricity generated from burning coal has flattened out in the last five years.
Figure 3. China’s “black” energy system, 1980-2016: Coal consumption and electricity generation |
Source of primary data: The data for conventional thermal electricity generation is available from the China Electricity Council (CEC); the data for total coal production is available from the BP Statistical Review (2016) ‘Statistics of World Energy’; the data for coal consumption for thermal power generation is available from the National Bureau of Statistics, China.
As shown above in Table 1, the share of fossil fuel-based power plants, predominantly coal fired stations, in China’s generating capacity has been falling by over 10% a decade, to reach 66% by 2015 and just 64% in 2016. The 5YP for energy released by the NEA calls for the share of fossil fuel-based generating capacity in total generating capacity to fall to 61% by 2020, and that of coal to 55% – which assumes that the current rate of reduction of 10% a decade can be maintained (or improved). On top of this consumption limit, the 13th FYP specifies a target for capping thermal power capacity below 1,100 GW (1.1 TW) – not far above the 2016 level of 1,054 GW of thermal capacity.
The London-based consulting firm E3G surprised the world with a chart showing China pulling ahead of the EU in clean energy investment in the decade up to 2015
Consistent with this stringent goal, in March 2016 the NEA ordered a halt to construction of new coal-fired power projects in 15 regions where capacity was in surplus. In April the NEA went further and introduced what is known as the ‘traffic lights’ control system based on capacity analysis region by region. In January 2017 the NEA announced that 104 planned or under-construction coal plants were being suspended, amounting to 120 GW of thermal capacity being decommissioned (at least until 2018).16
The London-based Carbon Tracker Initiative released a report in November 2016 stating that as of July 2016 China had 895 GW of operating coal-burning capacity plus another 205 GW of capacity under construction and 405 GW of extra capacity planned – amounting to investment in unneeded coal-burning capacity of more than half a trillion dollars (CTI 2016).17 Thus the suspensions announced by NEA in January, amounting to 120 GW of capacity being decommissioned, go some way to relieving the situation described by CTI.18
According to China’s 13th FYP for energy, released in October 2016, the share of coal in primary energy consumption is envisaged to fall from its current level of 64% to 58% by 2020, while the share of non-fossil fuel in primary energy shall be at least 15%. Its level currently stands at 13%, which is lower than the level of Germany (about 20% in 2015) but comparable to the level of the US (14% in 2015).
Renewable-based electricity in China in international perspective
The result in 2016 is that China is the world’s largest builder of renewable energy systems by far. Again there are three aspects to the comparative analysis of the scale of China’s domestic energy system compared with that of other leading industrial countries – in terms of WWS capacity, in terms of electricity generated from renewable sources, and in terms of investment.
Taking generating capacity first, China is a clear world leader compared with other leading industrial powers, as shown in Fig. 4.
China is likewise the world’s leading generator of WWS (green) electricity. As a point of comparison, the US generated just over 4,100 TWh of electricity in 2016, of which fossil fuel-based electricity accounted for 65%, nuclear power accounted for 20% and renewables including hydro accounted for 15%, according to the Energy Information Administration. The WWS-based electricity generation in the US amounted to 512 TWh in 2016, which is about one third of the WWS-based electricity generation in China (1488 TWh).
On the financial front, China has again outperformed the rest of the world in terms of investment in clean energy. According to BNEF, of a total investment in clean energy in 2016 of US$287.5, China was stated to account for $87.8 billion (30.6%) while the EU accounted for $70.9 billion and Japan for just $22.8 billion.
The London-based consulting firm E3G surprised the world with a chart showing China pulling ahead of the EU in clean energy investment in the decade up to 2015.20There will be great interest in any update that E3G may care to publish in 2017.
Globalization of China’s energy system
Alongside China’s emergence internationally as a renewables superpower, the fear remains that China’s globalization is driving further expansion of its coal and fossil fuel activities. The issue was put starkly in an article in ClimateHome: ‘China cuts coal at home, grows coal abroad’.21 Is this really happening?
The argument is that Chinese companies and banks continue to drive global coal expansion, with state-owned companies, backed by state loans, building coal-fired power plants across the world. Now there is no doubt that much of China’s internationalization strategy, particularly the infrastructure connectivity projects involved in One Belt One Road, involve further expansion of fossil fuels. There are pipelines, coal-loading facilities, and new coal-burning power plants. It would be surprising if these items were absent from any list of Chinese investments abroad.
India tends to be cited widely as the site of China’s “next” coal boom – yet it is worth noting that India is desperately seeking to build its green capacity
But the point is surely that these ‘black’ investments, like those involved in China’s domestic activities, are increasingly matched by green investments abroad. The China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has been created to drive the financing of many of these projects, and it explicitly describes itself as a green bank, with green projects like the world’s largest solar farm being built in Pakistan with Chinese financing as clear evidence of this trend. India tends to be cited widely as the site of China’s “next” coal boom – yet it is worth noting that India is desperately seeking to build its green capacity, through the National Solar and Wind Power programs, while actually shutting down coal-fired plants.22
In the year 2016 the Indian Energy Ministry announced plans to cancel four proposed coal-fired power plants, having a combined capacity of 16 GW, while the draft National Electricity Plan released at the end of the year concludes that beyond already partially completed plants, India needs no further coal-fired power plants.23 At the same time that India’s dependence on coal is seen as diminishing, its reliance on solar and wind is rising. In the first week of February 2017 the state of Madhya Pradesh staged a public auction for bids to build solar arrays in the Rewa Solar Park, with the winning bid coming in at Rupees 3.59-3.64/kWh (US$53/MWh) – competitive with the best in the world and one that was 25% lower than bids lodged a year earlier.24 India is greening its black electric power system in emulation of what China has done a decade earlier. These developments in the greening of India’s electric power sector are not only of enormous benefit to India, such plans also cast China’s prospects for exporting coal-fired plants to India in a fresh light.
Editor’s Note
This article first appeared in the Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus and is republished here with permission.
John Mathews is Professor of Management at Macquarie University, Australia. Hao Tan is Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia.
Mathews is the author, most recently, of Global Green Shift – When Ceres meets Gaia.
Notes
2 For the NEA see press release issued on 16 Jan here; for the CEC see here. The 13th Five Year Plan for electric power sector was issued in Nov 2016, here.
3 The latest figures for total electricity generation in the three EU countries are: Germany 648 TWh; France 569 TWh and the UK 338 TWh, or 1555 TWh in total – compared with 1488 TWh just for electricity generated from WWS sources in China. It is worth noting that the total electricity generation of OECD countries has barely increased since the late 2000s.
4 One explanation for the divergence may be that the GWEC estimate may include non grid-connected wind capacity. See the GWEC report for 2016 here.
5 See ‘Global installed solar PV capacity will surpass 756 GW by 2025, GlobalData’, by Joshua Hill, CleanTechnica, June 28 2016.
6 See GlobalData report issued 14 Feb 2017, here.
7 See ‘Siemens-Gamesa merger to create a ‘Big Four’ of OEMs’, Wind Power Monthly, 22 Feb 2017.
8 A very recent example concerns China’s Gezhouba Group which has been contracted to build a big hydropower project on the Indus River in Pakistan (as part of China’s One Belt One Road strategy), as reported in the Hindustan Times, here.
9 See Chapter 2 in our 2015 book on China’s Renewable Energy Revolution.
10 Curtailment refers to the situation where power could be potentially generated and supplied to the grid based on existing capacity but in reality has to stay idle, because grid companies determine the priorities among various power generation facilities and technologies when the total demand for electric power at a given time is less than the supply.
11 Those measures are indicated in the Power Sector 13th FYP, as articulated by the spokesperson of the National Energy Administration, here.
12 See our previous article on this issue in this Journal here.
Nigel West says
A good overview of China’s developing power sector.
Having imported western power gen. tech. e.g. renewables and nuclear. Now they are proving home grown designs that will be cheaper than western made wind turbines and nuclear steam supply systems. Expect to see their renewables tech. and reactors being sold around the world. Perhaps not in the EU where tariff barriers will protect Europe’s expensive manufacturers so burdening consumers with higher priced leccy. But the UK will soon be free of the EU and able to fully benefit from lower priced Chinese reactors and wind turbines so keeping power prices low and keeping UK industry competitive.
“So while China is still adding a billion-watt power station burning coal each week, it is adding wind turbines and solar farms at an even greater rate.”
Providing each new 1GW of coal-fired capacity is clean supercritical high efficiency plant which displaces low efficiency dirty polluting coal, that’s very good for cities like Beijing plagued with smog caused by coal burning, and for lowering carbon emissions.
“the capacity addition is likely to moderate in the next years, partly due to the change in the Chinese economic structure towards less energy-intensive, more value added economic activities, and also the effect of improvements in energy efficiency.”
The tables show new nuclear making a strong contribution to lowering emissions as well as renewables. If China’s rate of development and need for more generation capacity declines, the next 10 years will be a good opportunity, as time will be on China’s side, to build more nuclear capacity to fully replace firm capacity dirty coal.
“As revealed in Fig. 3 China’s coal consumption peaked in 2013 at 4 billion tonnes, and it has been decreasing each year (although at a rate that moderated in 2016 over 2015), while electricity generated from burning coal has flattened out in the last five years.”
Demonstrating that China’s economic development was built on reliable coal capacity. Now complementary renewables capacity is displacing black generation. Although China is capping coal-fired capacity levels, firm coal and nuclear capacity will remain the bedrock for decades.
Helmut Frik says
So far chniese wind power generators had big problems to compete against “expensive” wind power generators from europe.
Wind power generators are a different business than solar power.
Producing solar power modules is a relatively sipmle task. Get a lot of money from the bank, but y automatised pruduction line from Meyer Burger or similar, and train your staff with the help of the machine manufacturer to keep process parameters in the wanted limits.
Same for Glasses, and frames and foils, which can be bought from the market as tandard components, or can be bought as standard manufacturing lines.
Primary ressoirce needed is enough money, in this case provided from chinese states banks, and patience with your empoyees till they have learned how it works.
Wind power is more complex, with many different component only needed once for several MW of capacity. A lot of things needed to be done in wind power can not be bouth as automatic production line of the shelf. Which makes entering the market more difficult.
Since also costs of qualified labor rises in china with around 10% per year, the competition is not that fierce. Advances in knowledge how the systems are being built, which exist in china, are eaten up by rising costs of production in china.
Which results in competition by european manufacturers in china itself whenever the chinese gouvernment allows it: http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1424516/importing-oems-double-china-market-share
And goldwind expanding so far only to US and australia and direct neighbours of china, where competition is much lower, than in the high competition market in europe.
So far China generates much more TWh from new wind and solar than from nuclear. Grid expansion to integrate more wind and solar is under way in many places.
Bob Wallace says
I suspect we’re going to see a rapid drop in coal consumption in China over the next ten years.
China’s first job was to create a vibrant economy which was needed to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. They needed new energy sources to power the transformation and turned to coal for a large portion of that energy.
But even as they built new coal plants China shut down thousands of inefficient coal plants. Going back the the days of Mao, China’s cities have suffered from coal pollution. Now that China has a more affluent population who are not worried about where they will get food for today they are turning their attention to other concerns such as air pollution.
China has just announced that there will be no more coal plants built in most provinces. China’s energy needs are not expanding as they were. Wind and solar have become very affordable. I’d expect China to further expand their wind and solar programs and to continue to lower their coal consumption rates.
If the Chinese government does not start showing clear signals that they are cleaning up air pollution they could easily experience unrest from citizens who are tired of China’s choking air.
Nigel West says
Helmut, the latest direct drive machines according to Vestas use 10 times the amount of rare earths compared to earlier designs. China seems to have cornered much of the market in rare earth supply. Might China’s controlling position in rare earths be a problem for European wind turbine manufacturers in future?
Bob Wallace says
Rare earth minerals are not rare. China simply has the big supply at the moment because they undercut other countries and took over the market.
Neodymium exists in large abundance outside China. According to Henrik Stiesdal, chief technology officer for Siemens which is one of the biggest wind turbine manufacturers in the world, “There are a couple of companies outside China that could keep us running for thousands of years”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26687605
Nigel West says
When machines located in the North Sea look worse than this after possibly less than 20 years enduring harsh conditions and extremes of weather:
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/science-environment/138950-14-000-abandoned-wind-turbines.html
The neodymium will at least be worth recovering.
Bob Wallace says
The Danes are now taking down their first offshore wind farm. The 11 turbines that made up the Vindeby wind farm were installed in 1991, over 25 years ago.
I don’t have data for their last five years but after 20 years they were still producing about as much electricity as when new.
The turbines were still producing electricity last year but apparently mounting repair costs along with now-tiny turbines (450 kW) made the facility no longer viable.
That “14,000 abandoned wind turbines” is an old myth that seems to have originated in 2010. None of the reports have ever specified where one could find these many rusting turbines.
There was one wind farm – much, much smaller than 14,000 turbines that was abandoned. Never completed, IIRC. Apparently some sort of falling out between partners and a failure of financing. I think it was down in the Tehachapi area. But it’s long been cleaned up.
It sat for a while waiting for the courts to determine ownership. Upon settlement the turbines were removed and sold for scrap. The value of the materials more than covered their removal cost.
At one time, back in the 1980s, there were several, I’d guess a couple of dozen, out of use turbines in the Altamont Pass area. There were some strange variations in turbine and blade designs that just didn’t pan out. One could see multiple “one of a kind” test turbines that just sat parked for a few years until they were removed.
Somewhere there were a couple hundred vertical axis “eggbeater” turbines that were shut down as a bad idea, tried.
From your link ” They produce less energy before they break down than the energy it took to make them.”
Current wind turbines return the energy embedded in 3 to 8 months. The time depends on the strength of the wind resource where they are installed.
The Altamont bird info in the piece is just plain wrong.
Nigel West says
The UK Government now insists that before consent is given for a new offshore wind farm a decommissioning plan is prepared. Should ensure old machines are removed. Same applies to North Sea oil platforms/rigs which have to be removed too.
I posted the article just for the picture. But the bird issues are concerning. Windfarms in Scotland have to be carefully located to prevent too many birds of prey being killed. The actual numbers affected is controversial. It hasn’t helped that some wildlife charities that have strongly supported renewables have been slow to voice concerns about rare birds being affected if wind farms are placed in sensitive bird locations. This piece, see Jim Wiegand in the comments section, may only be concerned about the birds and not biased against renewables:
http://www.glasgowsouthandeastwoodextra.co.uk/news/environment/wind-turbine-at-whiteleehill-farm-loses-a-nose-cone-1-4391662
Bob Wallace says
Wiegand has an opinion. His opinion is that the Scottish government is covering up large numbers of golden eagle kills.
He claims that the wildlife biologists doing bird kill counts in Scotland are either incapable of doing an accurate count or are lying.
And to back this up he has nothing. Other than his opinion.
He also claims that, in the US –
“The Scotland Golden eagles are the same exact species as our golden eagles that have been killed by the thousands from wind energy.”
Thousands, perhaps, if one totals all eagle kills over a couple of decades. We had one raptor killing wind farm in operation for some time.
“Golden eagle fatalities are relatively uncommon at wind projects. In fact, less than 3 percent of all human-caused golden eagle deaths in the United States occur due to collisions with turbines. More than 90 percent of wind farms do not harm any eagles at all.
The majority of golden eagle deaths occur at older wind farms build in the 1980s, when the relationship between turbines and eagles was not understood. Better-sited, modern turbines are replacing outdated ones and lowering deaths by 80 percent. Modern turbines have slower-rotating blades, and fewer are needed to generate the same amount of electricity.”
http://www.awea.org/eagles-and-wind-energy
The US’s first wind farm, Altamont Pass, did kill an unreasonable number of raptors. It used grid style towers, low hub heights, and rapidly spinning rotors.
Raptors would perch on the crossbars of the tower and watch for ground squirrels (common in that area) . When they spotted prey the raptors would sometimes launch themselves off their perch and through the blades which were spinning too fast to be easily seen. (Think about rapidly moving house fan blades.)
Altamont has been repowered with modern turbines which use monopod towers (no place to perch), much higher hub heights, and much slower rotating blades.
There was one poorly sited wind farm (around Powder River?) that killed a few eagles. Some sort of remediation has been done/is underway but I don’t know the solution. Last I heard they were talking about moving the turbines to a new location.
Correct siting, away from nesting areas and migratory routes, along with modern technology and the problem is minimal. Let’s put it in perspective.
Domestic cats in the United States kill up to 3.7 billion birds each year. (6,457x wind) (2)
http://phys.org/news/2013-01-cats-billions-birds-mammals.html#jCp
Collisions with buildings kill 976 million birds each year. (1,703x wind)
http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf
Collisions with vehicles kill 380 million birds each year. (663x wind)
http://www.abcbirds.org/conservationissues/threats/energyproduction/index.html
Collisions with communication towers kill 174 million each year. (304x wind)
http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf
Poisoning kills 72 million bird each year. (126x wind)
http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf
Managed annual waterfowl hunt kills about 15 million birds a year
http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/
The Exxon Valdez spill killed almost a half million birds.
http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/Projects/ProjectInfo.cfm?project_id=826
Conclusion: Wind turbines are a tiny, tiny cause of bird death.
Based on bird kills per gigawatt hour of electricity produced.
Wind farms kill roughly 0.27 birds per GWh.
Nuclear plants kill about 0.6 birds per GWh. (2.2x wind)
Fossil-fueled power stations kill about 9.4 birds per GWh. (34.8x wind)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2198024
The Audubon Society is the leading advocate for birds in the United States. Here is their statement on wind farms.
“For Audubon, wind power is a good news, bad news story. The good news is that many new wind-power projects are being proposed across the country. For example, not long ago I flew over South Dakota and saw hundreds of wind turbines dotting the landscape. The state of Texas recently announced its intention to become the country’s wind-power capital.
The bad news is that wind turbines sometimes kill a lot of birds. Some early wind projects like Altamont in California are notorious for killing many raptors, including golden eagles.
Modern wind turbines are much safer for birds than their predecessors, but if they are located in the wrong places, they can still be hazardous and can fragment critical habitat. In cases where the birds affected are already in trouble, such as sage grouse in windy parts of the plains states, the turbines could push them closer to extinction.
On balance, Audubon strongly supports wind power as a clean alternative energy source that reduces the threat of global warming. Location, however, is important. ”
http://policy.audubon.org/audubon-statement-wind-power
Nigel West says
Bob, another wall of statistics…….
This issue here is not bird deaths in general, but the death of rare birds of prey that don’t reproduce quickly and Scotland is home to some rare species fighting to recover population levels.
Its easy to quote the AWEA who are not exactly independent on the matter.
“Wind farms kill roughly 0.27 birds per GWh. Nuclear plants kill about 0.6 birds per GWh. (2.2x wind)”
I would have expected you to be more careful before siting data like that. It should be clear the bird death rate for nuclear stations looks dodgy. Here is an alternative view:
https://atomicinsights.com/nukes-kill-more-birds-than-wind/
Bob Wallace says
You don’t like facts?
As for the nuclear claim. I’ll cease making it until I have the opportunity to dig deeper. I do not consider Adam’s site to be a reliable source based on statements and claims I’ve seen Rod post elsewhere.
If you would like some eagle specific data here’s what I’ve found….
“Between 1997 and June 2012, researchers identified 85 combined bald eagle and golden eagle fatalities attributed to wind turbines, or roughly 5.6 deaths per year in the entirety of the contiguous United States.
Moreover, of those 85 total eagle deaths in a 15-year period, only six were bald eagles. The remaining 79 deceased birds were golden eagles.”
http://www.snopes.com/obama-gives-kill-order-for-bald-eagles/
Helmut Frik says
[censored -] Always the same pictures of some broken Turbines on Hawai which are exchanged with new turbines some years ago, the mejority of this park was working till it was knocked down.
The olt turbines, in California, (those which have not been replaced by new turbines) crank out the same amout of GWh as when they were brand new, so much about ” 14.000 brolen down rusting turbines littering the land scape” – just fake news.
Nigel West says
Abandoned and unprofitable wind turbines could be just around the corner in Germany. A former investor in German wind power writes:
“We stopped offering wind farms in Germany in 2010 since all the good sites were taken.
Now the calculation, assuming I am a not-for-profit investor who is happy to just get his money back:
New Wind farm; all in; turn-key: 1,400 €/kW
Spare part replacements: 200 €/kW
O&M: 40 €/kW first year
Inflation: 2%
Lifetime: 20 years
Revenue: 0,058 €/kWh
Total cost over 20 years (rounded): 1,400 +200 + 972(O&M) = 2,572 €
In order to just get my money back, it would take 2,217 full-load-hours p.a. I can assure you, there is not a single location available in Germany where these flh´s are possible. The realistic assumption today is 1,800 flh.
So these fine people who were bidding these ridiculous prices, will all end up bankrupt after four years of operation at the latest.
As a side note: about half of Germany´s wind farms are bankrupt. The only reason why they are not shut down by the Banks is that the Banks themselves would have to show massive losses on their balance sheets. So they pretend and extend.”
I personally know about 25 people who invested without understanding what they were getting into in wind farms and now have to come up with additional money every year to cover the ongoing losses because of too little wind. Some of them had to declare personal bankruptcy since their shares were/are worthless.”
Bob Wallace says
I seldom challenge someone to back up their claims but I’m afraid I need to this time.
Where do you get your numbers, including wind farms lasting only 20 years?
All the good sites taken? Then why is Germany continuing to install wind turbines?
Give us something reliable to back all that stuff up. Not some drivel from an anti-renewable, pro-nuclear site.
Half of Germany’s wind farms bankrupt? I suspect what you are reporting is that ‘first generation’ wind turbines are now reaching the end of their 20 year subsidy programs and can’t compete with modern technology.
Germany, like the US has been repowering sites where early tech turbines were installed 15+ years ago. Those short tower, lower tech turbines no longer make sense. Growing pains.
If someone invested in a wind turbine that didn’t recover its cost and return some profit within the 20 year subsidy window then they engaged in foolish investing.
In the US wind turbines contain enough value in recyclable material to cover their removal and return of the site into original condition.
Helmut Frik says
In germany if you do not own the [land] where the turbine is built, you have to provide a bank deposit which is high enough to remove the turbine in case the company building it goes bankrupt. As far as I know this money was never needed so far.
Helmut Frik says
Well, a lot of investos earn good money in germany with wind power. But you can name the companys you know which are bancrupt, we will all be curious. But I’m afraid you will have nothing or little to show. And 1800 full load hours are nothing special for new turbines in low wind areas, in high wind areas at the coast they reach higher numbers.
And banks love financing wind power generation. Low risks, safe returns of investment. Otherwise they would not go on financing new rojects all the time.
Helmut Frik says
No, because there are many designs wich do not use any rare earths. (Enercon for example does not use any rare earths)
Ant the temporary increase of rare earth prices by china triggered the development of many rare earth mines accross the earth. These materials are not as rare as the names say.
The Erzgebrge (ore mountains ) don’t have their names for fun, in and around them most of the periodic system can be mined if neccesary. Not the best ores in the world, but Lanthan, Cer, Praseodym, Neodym, Europium, Scandium and Yttrium can be mined in saxony if neccesary.
Beside this, it is possible to extract them as byproduct from many iron ores worldwide. it#s just a question of price. As long as china delivers at low costs it pushes the many other options from the market.
Bob Wallace says
At this point in time it appears permanent magnets will continue to be used for offshore turbines. Using permanent magnets allows for a simpler mechanical system, no gearbox. And that means less repair work at sea where cranes are much more expensive, travel times greater and work can only be done in favorable weather conditions.
Nigel West says
Gear box problems and the maintenance issues suggest geared machines will not be used much offshore. Anyone know if the proposed 12MW machines will be PMG based, use the Enercon annular design, or is a new drivetrain design needed?
Bob Wallace says
I haven’t found a source that says all offshore turbines will be direct drive. What I found is that there seem to be a number of countries who are now developing 12 MW turbines. One company talked about their design which allows all components of the turbine to be swapped out at the site. (I wonder if this leads to 50+ year lifespan?)
Lockheed Martin has designed a 50 MW turbine. With 200 meter long blades.
Bob Wallace says
number of companies, not countries…