Why is China's wind power generation vigorously developing

Have you ever seen the white windmill standing on the vast and boundless grassland?

The three piece windmill, which looks like a large children's toy, is one of the main sources of electricity people need in their daily lives.

And this device, which generates electricity for human daily needs through strong winds blowing through nature, appeared as early as the 1930s in Europe.

In recent years, wind power has become one of the main sources of global electricity supply due to energy scarcity and environmental demand.

However, energy with excellent conditions in all aspects is one of the main directions for electricity development, and the efforts of European and American countries to build wind power plants are continuously decreasing.

Why does wind power suddenly bring such great pressure to European and American countries? Why is our country still vigorously building?

Are there any drawbacks to wind power generation? Firstly, we need to start with the principle of wind power generation.

Wind power generation relies on wind power to drive the blades of wind turbines, thereby converting wind energy into electrical energy. 

The power generation device mainly consists of a wind turbine, a gearbox, and a generator.

The wind turbine is like a giant windmill, and when the wind blows, it can drive the entire windmill to rotate.

However, the speed of the wind cannot guarantee stability, so a built-in speed regulator is needed before driving the generator to generate electricity.

We can occasionally see the "windmill" of a wind turbine from a distance, so how big is this power generation device?

His wind turbine blades are between 20m and 80m in length, approximately six to twenty floors high!

And this tower, which needs to support the wind turbine, has a height of about 60 to 120 meters. The higher the wind speed in an area, the larger the wind turbines built.

Therefore, when constructing a generator, the interval between two wind turbines needs to be greater than 500 meters to ensure the normal operation of the generator.

In recent years, offshore wind power has gradually begun to be built, which utilizes the abundant wind energy at sea to generate electricity and transfer wind turbines from onshore plains, hills, and other areas to shallow sea areas near the coastline, bays, and straits.

The volume of offshore wind turbines is also larger than that of onshore wind turbines, which can utilize more wind energy resources, but at the same time, the manufacturing cost will also be higher.

This also indirectly led to the decline of wind power generation in the United States.

In recent years, the United States has been affected by factors such as the overall economic downturn and generally rising inflation rates, which have made wind power developers more cautious in investment and greatly weakened the ability of the wind power industry to attract capital.

At the same time, the infrastructure of ports and ships in the United States, as well as the local manufacturing industry, are limited, and there are almost no special ships in the local industry that can assemble and construct offshore wind turbines.
What should we do then? Can only foreign ships be used now?

The local law tells you that even foreign ships are not allowed!

Originally, the United States has always restricted foreign ships from carrying out construction operations in their waters.

Various reasons, combined with supply chain gaps, have already affected the construction of offshore wind power in the United States.

But more importantly, the overly complex approval and regulatory processes involved in the development of wind power in the United States.

In the United States, offshore wind power developers must also have state government authorization to develop projects in various states on the East Coast.

All of these have caused a lot of trouble for offshore wind power development in the United States.

The complex approval and supervision process makes it difficult for wind power construction to develop on a large scale, which is one of the reasons for the headache of the capital.

Looking at Europe again, the wind power industry is also facing many problems.

Due to the unstable economic conditions, after the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the earnings of European wind power have almost become negative, and developers are facing enormous pressure.

In addition, Europe itself does not have a complete industrial chain, and many equipment needs to be imported from overseas.

However, due to the impact of the epidemic, global logistics have repeatedly been interrupted and unable to deliver on time, which has naturally led to a significant delay in the construction of wind power plants.

Every delay is a huge economic loss, which exacerbates the existing difficulties in Europe.
These economic reasons have led to many difficulties and obstacles in the construction of the wind power industry in Europe and America, bringing great uncertainty to sustainable development.

However, European and American countries not only believe that wind power is difficult to develop in practice, but also believe that there are some drawbacks to wind power itself.

European and American countries claim that wind power generation has some instability.

Due to the fact that wind itself is an intermittent renewable resource, factors such as wind speed and direction are uncontrollable. Although annual changes may not necessarily have significant fluctuations, changes within a few days are difficult to predict.

If a region relies entirely on wind power generation, the electricity consumption situation for local residents will become extremely unstable.

Therefore, wind power generation often needs to be used in conjunction with other power resources, such as gas or hydropower, or as a reserve power source.

In addition, to avoid the impact of wind speed uncertainty on power supply, it is necessary to ensure the reliability of the power system. Therefore, there are high requirements for power supply equipment.

Secondly, European and American countries have stated that the construction of wind turbines has also had an impact on the survival of many animals.

The constantly rotating behemoth of wind turbines poses a huge threat to the survival of birds, especially migratory birds.

In California, approximately 4400 raptors die each year in wind farms in the region. At the same time, research estimates that approximately 140000 to 500000 birds are injured by wind turbines every year.

In addition, Trump's advisor David Stevenson has publicly questioned offshore wind power construction projects on the East Coast of the United States.

He believes that this large-scale wind power facility will pose a threat to the extinction of endangered marine life in North America.

Is there no threat to human living space?

In Massachusetts, USA, two wind turbines were built in 2010, and some local residents repeatedly complained about noise issues, ultimately leading to the cessation of operation of these two wind turbines in 2015.

Local residents stated that the work of wind turbines not only harms wildlife, but also has a negative impact on the lives of surrounding residents during operation.

Because the wind turbine emits huge noise during operation.

Generally speaking, wind power plants are located 200 to 500 meters away from residential areas, but there may still be noise that causes dissatisfaction and complaints from local residents.

Meanwhile, most local fishermen do not welcome offshore wind power plants.

When the first commercial offshore wind power station in the United States began construction, the federal court in Washington received lawsuits filed by fishermen from multiple states.

They stated that wind power plants can interfere with the positioning and navigation of fishing boats, as well as affect the reproduction and growth of fish.

This lawsuit ultimately received support from the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

But this is not the first time that offshore wind farms have faced opposition from local residents, as they have previously been sued for land occupation issues.

All these factors have brought great resistance to the development of the wind power industry in Europe and America, which is also the main reason for the slow development of the wind power industry in recent years.

Since there are so many obstacles and drawbacks to the development of the wind power industry, why is China still insisting on developing wind power?

Firstly, the economic and equipment issues faced by Europe and America in building wind power stations are not a problem in China.

At present, many wind power equipment products in the international market are made in China, and China has a relatively ample selection space in terms of demand for raw materials and equipment parts.

And as a clean and sustainable energy source, wind power has advantages over traditional thermal power and hydropower.

However, China's wind power generation started relatively late, and its current development still lags behind the other two. This is also a major reason why China is still vigorously promoting the construction of wind power.

The policy support from the country will also be increasing, and the market demand for wind power industry will continue to increase, with huge market growth potential.

On March 29, 2021, the first onshore 5.5MW permanent magnet direct drive wind turbine in China was launched at Dongfang Electric Shandong Wind Power Manufacturing Base, marking the successful development of the largest onshore permanent magnet direct drive wind turbine in China.

This is also a result of the continuous progress of China's wind power development.

China has vast territory and abundant resources, and wind energy is extremely abundant.

The southeastern coast, northern Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, northern Gansu, and northeastern regions all have abundant wind energy resources, with an effective wind energy density of over 200 watts per square meter. The wind energy resources in the Qinghai Tibet Plateau region are also around 150-200 watts per square meter, and the annual effective utilization of wind energy hours ranges from 3000 to 8000 hours.

And these regions not only have concentrated wind energy distribution, but also favorable terrain for wind power construction, and are far away from residential areas. Without affecting the survival of humans and animals, China is a good time to develop the wind power industry.

For China, since the power system reform in 1992, there have been significant changes in the country's power system, shifting from hydropower, coal-fired fuel to various methods of power generation such as hydropower, nuclear power, and wind power.

With the vigorous promotion of power grid construction, there is a good balance between power supply and demand. At this time, wind power, as a clean new energy source, is increasingly penetrating into the development of electricity, undoubtedly making a huge contribution to environmental protection.

Wind power is the main force in achieving the "dual carbon" goal. At the same time, due to the fact that the cost of wind power is already on par with traditional fossil energy generation and even more economical, and has the potential for further cost reduction, the large-scale application of wind power will reduce the energy consumption cost of the whole society and achieve a more economical energy transformation.

In the past, the proportion of thermal power generation has been continuously decreasing, which is an important step in reducing carbon emissions for China, which attaches great importance to environmental protection.

Wind power, as an excellent alternative, undoubtedly provides strong support for environmental protection.

China is currently facing a great opportunity for the development of wind power, and the manufacturing industry of wind power equipment in China will continue to thrive.