The pandemic hasn’t slowed down China’s sprint to overtake the UK as the world leader in offshore wind installations! Analysts from the firm FTI Consulting expect the country’s cumulative offshore capacity will pull ahead of the UK as soon as next year. Even the UK’s plans to double its capacity by 2030 don’t affect that.
But the pass isn’t a bad thing for the UK’s wind energy industry – on the contrary, it’ll be good for business. Feng Zhao, strategy director at the Global Wind Energy Council, said:
A European-only business will mean limited growth. If it goes to Asia, North America, and even Africa, it grows the pie. Technology can be transferred; innovation spreads across the globe. It’s a big opportunity, and it’s good for the planet.
China started catching up to in 2017 – the year when its offshore installations breached the 1-gigawatt mark. The landmark moment was only the beginning of a snowball effect. A growing army of turbines is rising along a thousand-mile stretch of coastline from Shanghai down to Hong Kong. Soon, there will be hundreds of them providing enough energy to power millions of businesses and homes.
China is determined to conquer the global renewable energy market. Despite COVID-19, it has been building more offshore wind capacity than all of the world’s countries combined. It’s due to reach a total of 52-gigawatts by 2030.
Zhao said:
Amid climate change, the big drive was the government wanting to develop a new industry, create jobs and economic growth while reducing coal production.
Including China’s on-shore wind farms, there are over 135,000 installed turbines generating over 235-gigawatts of electricity yearly. Furthermore, the country’s one of the world’s leading exporters of solar panels.
And although it may be the biggest producer of carbon emissions on the planet, it’s not because of negligence to renewable power. At the moment, coal-fired power plants remain the backbone of the Chinese economy, but renewables are steadily rising.
Dale Vince, the owner of UK’s green electricity company Ecotricity, said:
I like what China is doing. There’s hypocrisy coming from the developed world about its power stations – we’ve been through that stage. You have to balance criticism of its coal habits with the rate at which it’s turned to renewables. Without China, we wouldn’t have the successful solar and renewables industry of today.
According to Zhao, the Communist Party’s 12th Five-Year plan (in 2011) was the turning point.
He said:
There was a big effort to tackle climate change. As a local, I’ve read much criticism of the government. But without its support, there’d be no way of meeting renewable targets. China’s size and 1.4 billion-strong population mean that a huge volume of renewable energy is being generated – albeit with plenty of carbon dioxide still being pumped into the atmosphere.
China’s long-term target is to have half its energy sourced from renewables by 2050. The UK aims to be carbon neutral by then. Wind power will be how both nations meet their targets.
