The electricity generated by China’s wind energy capacity fell by 5.2% in 2014, according to the country’s National Energy Administration.
The news, reported by Wind Power Monthly, states that the average uptime for projects of 6 MW and over across the country was 1,905 hours. The decline in generation came due to curtailments and weaker wind conditions throughout the northern provinces of Jilin and Gansu.
Specifically, the regions of Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and Xinjiang were all reported to have performed well — with Xinjiang registering an average uptime of 2,094 hours, and Fujian, in southeast China, registering the highest uptime of 2,530 hours.
This news adds credence to the American Wind Energy Association’s views that America, rather than China, is in fact the premiere wind energy giant in the world.
Twice now, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has published a blog post by James Walker, a member of the AWEA, about the competition between the US and China. Many automatically assume China to be world number one in wind energy, installing 20.7 GW of wind energy, compared to America’s 4.7 GW.
However, when talking about energy generated, the AWEA points out that the US is well ahead of China — 20%, to be exact; 167 billion kWh compared to 138 billion kWh.
While China’s total wind energy capacity sits at 96 GW, for whatever reason, it doesn’t appear to be doing the job it needs to be doing.
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
