Hebei Longyuan Wind Power Plans 300 MW Project In China’s Hebei Province
Hebei Longyuan Wind Power has announced plans to set up 300 MW of wind energy capacity in Hebei. The company was formed through a joint venture between China Longyuan Power Group and Hebei Construction and Investment Group. The company is currently in early stages of development of the project and is determining the exact locations for the installation of the wind turbines.
China already has a booming wind energy sector with the highest installed capacity in the world and very ambitious capacity addition targets. Apart from the near-100 GW installed wind energy capacity, the country plans to add an additional 100 GW capacity by the end of this decade.
The renewable energy sector has also attracted attention from the companies obligated to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions under the seven operational pilot emissions trading schemes. The seven jurisdictions allow these companies to purchase a set maximum percentage of their compliance instruments from renewable energy and other emissions-offsetting projects located across China.
Hebei, however, has its own problems with increasing air pollution. The province is home to 7 or more of the top 10 polluted cities in China. The provincial government had to take stern measures to check air pollution during the recently concluded APEC meeting in Beijing. As many as 881 projects were asked to stop operations before and during the APEC meeting to reduce air pollution.
A large iron and steel plant had to be relocated out of the city to a remote location in order to curb air pollution. By 2017, the Hebei provincial government aims to relocate 123 heavy polluting companies.
The government is also working to improve the energy efficiency of energy-intensive industries in the province. In 2011, the Asian Development Bank completed the disbursement of a $100 million loan to companies in Hebei for implementing energy efficiency projects.
Image Credit: Flag of China on Yangtze River via Shutterstock
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They don’t have the best wind, but provinces like Hebei are where the people live. All this makes renewables more visible to ordinary Chinese. Let’s have more of that, many of them must think.
Hebei has good wind resources along its coast and in small pockets close to the border with Inner Mongolia.
And even if it’s not in those windy areas, it’s still a fairly safe bet to assume that it works out cheaper than importing power from the windy west or from offshore farms – grid connections with the west are often lacking in capacity and offshore wind is still too expensive.
I live and work in Hebei, I must say i’m not too optimistic about the prospects of clean enery in terms of wind power. It seems like some if not much of the turbines aren’t placed efficiently and often don’t move, i think it’s really just another avenue of wasteful government spending and corruption
Even without the most optimum of wind resources perhaps Hebei will find that they just need higher towers to get good production, as has been realized for onshore wind here in the SE US. It would seem that higher towers at the demand site would be more economical than big grid expansions across the country.
Even in the relatively short time since China started its turbine installations there have been technological improvements, with their ongoing commitment to renewables expansion they are in a good place to take advantage of these.
I suspect new taller tower designs are going to result in turbines becoming more common in places that haven’t seen them previously.
The most important metric may be how many hours per year the wind blows above some minimum kick-in speed. That, and the maximum length of hours below minimum.
Getting turbines spread around larger areas will low variability and low average wind speeds can be engineered around with longer blades.