Also, the power produced would have to be transmitted thousands of miles to high-energy demand areas on the densely populated coast in order to make a profit, a feat that is impossible today because of the lack of long-distance transmission technology or the funding to install it. One solution would be international assistance. "The U.S. also has to transmit wind power over long distances. The two countries can have technological cooperation," says engineer He Dexin, president of CWEA, who has been promoting wind energy since 1980.
The U.S. has infrastructure issues, too, such as aging and regionally constrained electrical grids, and Europe sometimes sees delays in connecting turbines to its grid. But getting intermittent wind turbines to work properly with the existing grid is "indeed a problem in China, much more so than in Europe and the U.S.," says Angelika Pullen, GWEC's communications director.
In the longer run, grid reconciliation is "not a real obstacle," NDRC's Li says. Half of China's grids were built in the past four years (70 percent in this century). They can be upgraded with better technologies. "We will improve our grids and build new ones to catch up with the wind power boom. We can work it out," he says.
Turbine troubles
One advantage in China—the cost of producing a turbine there is 70 percent of the international cost, Li says. China-made wind power devices accounted for 75 percent of the technology installed at Chinese wind farms in 2008, up from 57 percent in 2007, according to CWEA, thanks in part to central and local government mandates that require an ever-growing percentage of equipment at a wind farm in China be made domestically. For example, the NDRC stipulates in a 2005 regulation that wind farms cannot be built when the percentage is lower than 70.
But the quality of homegrown wind turbines is a serious problem. Many of the roughly 70 turbine manufacturing companies in China were set up in just the past four years. "Turbine producers need to test-use their products, especially their first ones, but some give no time to the step," He says. Some turbines cannot be used when they are installed, and some develop broken blades or cracked axes just a few weeks after they begin to operate.
And some wind farms have been built where there is not enough wind to ensure consistent generation of power, He adds. "The wind power sector is growing too fast. It needs to be stable for a period so that there can be a sustainable development in the long term," he says.
Despite these issues, government continues to chase the wind, setting the price for renewable power as high as 0.61 yuan per kilowatt-hour in July, about 10 percent higher than current prices for electricity from such installations. Wind farms also sell carbon credits at between 6 and 12 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour. "They are major players in China's carbon trading," Li says.
And the links between alternative energy, economic development and climate change pertain no less in China than elsewhere in the world. Harvesting wind power may be key to reining in China's emissions of greenhouse gases. "Our study shows that it is financially feasible to have wind as an important alternative to coal as a source of energy for electricity generation in China," says Wang Yuxuan, associate professor of environmental science and engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who co-authored the September 11 Science paper. "It is possible for China to use wind power on a large scale and to eliminate much, if not all of the CO2 expected to be emitted by the power sector over the foreseeable future."
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14 Comments
Add CommentAlthough there are many problems in China, such as the low quality of turbines, it is still a great process that China realizes the importance of wind energy and support its development.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMoreover, from the political and national security perspective, it is not a good idea for China to cooperate with US, since generally US is just willing to provide equipments, not technology. Consider wind energy becomes a very large portion of the whole energy in China and China does not have the core technology, it would be very dangerous.
I'm not surprised the Chinese have load balancing problems. It is insolvable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis author like most wind advocates quotes peak giga or mega watts of wind power forgetting that winds load factor is 20 to 30%. Engineers hate adding them to the grid because of the need to accommodate maximum power surges for 20% usable power.
The rapid ups and downs of wind power need balancing by old generation fast spooling low efficiency gas plant. Replacing the older type gas plants with modern high efficiency slow spooling versions, actually produces less green house gases at a lower cost for the same amount of power than if the wind mill was never built.
www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=f7ef4e6d-29f0-4a5e-95c3-084ff5eac8c0&k=3367
www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/lang-wind-power-co2-emissions.pdf
Wind Power is only suitable for pump air and hydro storage or fuel production, but that is so much more expensive than 24/7 always on nuclear. Wind is a dead end technology.
Westinghouse is building 4 nukes for the Chinese at $1200 a kilowatt for 24/7 always on power. Wind can't touch that cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChina is going to have a lot more problems if it doesn't start buying US equipment as the value of their US currency reserves and access to US markets for their good could be slowed as it should. Their artificially low currency peg to the $ is another problem neither the US or other countries can no longer afford.
The real question for them is whether they can build RE fast enough before their whole country is poisoned from coal, industrial, other wastes beyond repair.
Facts are most Chinese stuff is junk unless some buyer stands over them forcing them to do it correctly.
I disagree with your nuclear power idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course, you're right in theoretically that nuclear power is indeed better than wind power.But as far as I am concerned,
wind power is suitable for such a developing country,not nuclear power only mass-used.
Nuclear power industry is huge that needs not only the rector but also the equipment to solve the nuclear waste problem which needs billions of dollars,if want to eliminate its hazard thoroughly.Do you know what is the most popular way to do that?Just to bury the waste parceling in the lead box.So be careful next time when you want to build a house(just a joke:).Besides this,nuclear power has more difficulties to solve.From this perspective,using nuclear power can't be popular in China.
For wind power, obviously it doesn't need much technology while needs less money in total and it doesn't have waste at all.
Anyway,wind power's efficiency is low as you just said but in China it can be accepted.
So if you were the president of China,how could you choice?
"thanks in part to central and local government mandates that require an ever-growing percentage of equipment at a wind farm in China be made domestically. For example, the NDRC stipulates in a 2005 regulation that wind farms cannot be built when the percentage is lower than 70."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, it is acceptable for China to MANDATE the percentage of domestic content in their wind farms? I don't think so ! This is outright protectionism and is not good for China, Europe or the U.S..
For more information see:
http://ictsd.net/i/news/biores/48714/
in my opinion ,chinese government must have caught this potential resources.But while putting it into practice ,the government will found many problems as in this aticle.Anyway the use of wind energy will be have bright future!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhy can't wind power surges be shuttled to water pumps? reservoir storage with water turbines to produce power when the wind isn't blowing or blows too hard for too long. i don't know expensive reservoirs are to build, but that is another energy storage device and the water could also serve aqueducts if plentiful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPump storage is more expensive than just hydro really expensive. BCHydro's Site C dam proposal gives 900 mw for a $ 6.5 billion dam . Mass produced nukes are one sixth the cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe nuclear waste problem is solved with the consignment of waste to fuel for liquid metal fast reactors, like the one Sandia Labs has just designed and just needs political support to launch. To put the waste problem in perspective, we could just take all of it to the nearest coal plant and meter it slowly into the smoke stack. The nuclear waste would increase the coal plants already radioactive emissions by only a tiny percentage and wouldn't add any more lead, arsenic or mercury to the air. Or we could store the nuke waste under a half acre or so of the thousands of square miles of desert ,solar types were planning destroying forever by covering them with toxic solar cells.
I doubt the Chiness give a rats ass about nuclear waste. They can mix it with dish sets and sell it to Walmart.
Sethdayal
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would be cautious in generalizing the cost of pumped storage because it can vary significantly dependent upon the terrain. My old firm (I'm retired)completed an 850 MW pumped storage in Georgia in 1995 for a cost of $1.1 billion. This translates to $1294/kw, which is a pretty good price for a renewable, zero emission energy storage facility in the U.S.
I don't have other U.S. prices at my fingertips, but I do have an issue of HRW magazine, Dec 2008 which shows a range of prices in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Just to summarize a few:
Japan - Kannagawa Project by Tokyo Electric - $1737/KW for a 2,820 MW pumped storage project
Portugal - Alqueva 2 Project - $879/KW for a 240 MW pumped storage project
South Africa - Lima Project - $693/KW for a 1470 MW pumped storage project
These are projects presently under construction, so the prices should be relevant; and I think these are excellent rates for a renewable, zero emission energy storage facility.
Excellent info on short term (less than a day) pumped storage. $1500 a kw seems to be the consensus on current costs. Now we just need to add another $1300 a kw for the wind units and the 20% capacity factor for a total cost of $14000 a kw. This is a fair bit more than the $1200 for the always on Westinghouse nuclear plants sold to the Chinese.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLong term seasonal storage costs would be more like those I mentioned for BCHydro's Site C.
Other pumped hydro problems include the 25% round trip energy loss and the incredible difficulty in getting approval for flooding areas of land in western countries.
Sethdayal
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI forgot to mention in the first post that I agree with your analysis of the costs. Solar and wind renewable energy costs will always be higher than conventional (fossil fueled or nuclear) energy sources because of their low capacity factors, and therefore their requirement for energy storage facilities or long transmission lines.
The most effective "renewable" energy source is straight hydro. It has an efficiency of 85 to 90% (potential energy of the stored water to electricity), a capacity factor above 85%, and currently furnishes 6% (98,000 MW) of the U.S. grid (Reference IEEE Power & Energy magazine, Nov/Dec 2008). Latest estimates are that there is over 50,000 MW of straight hydro that can be developed in the U.S.. This consists of 30,000 MW from existing dams used for irrigation, municipal water supplies, flood control, etc.; which do not require new dams to be built, and are therefore relatively inexpensive to install; and 20 to 30,000 MW from new hydro sites. I am in favor of developing all these sites before we add massive amounts of wind and solar sites.
However, my main reason for responding, now that I have someone familiar with nuclear, is to ask you the following:
1. What is the average capacity factor of the 104 nuclear plants in the U.S.; and will this capacity factor improve with the new generation of nuclear plants?
2. What is the efficiency of the existing nuclear plants (steam boiler to electricity); and will that increase with the new generation of plants?
I find this information hard to come by. Thank you very much, in advance, for whatever info you can give me.
Hydro builds are extremely expensive these days far higher than mass produced nuclear. Google BCHydro Site C to get an idea. It doesn't get any better than Site C. $7000 a kw with a capacity factor of 60%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRun of the river projects are around the same price but a much lower capacity factor. 60% of water flow is spring time.
If you Google nuclear capacity factor you will find last years at around 92%. The predicted capacity factor for the AP1000 is 93%. Generation 3.5 nuclear thermal to electric efficiency is in the mid 30% because the steam is a fairly low temperature.
Generation 4 Fast metal reactors like the liquid flouride thorium reactor will approach 100% because they almost never have to be refueled. Their efficiencies can approach the 50% of gas gen plant because they can use high temperature helium gas into gas turbines.
I recently watched a video on how the US government is shipping, illegally, old computer monitors, cell phones and whatever else us over-consumers depose of overseas. Most of which is ending up in Hong Kong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are breaking them down for the valuable microchips and whatever else they can get but without the proper tools or protection. Monitors especially are filled with dangerous properties such as mercury and causing an alarming rate of pollution as they burn these materials, putting themselves in serious health risks and damaging our environment. Recycle properly!
Some years ago I read an article comparing the amount of energy produced in its lifetime by a fossil fuel plant - or nuclear - compared with the amount of energy required to start them up. In the case of fossils, it really amounted to concrete, steels, fabrication and mining/drilling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the case of nuclear we have all of the above ( with more exotic metals) plus the enormous energy input for isotope separation. I am not sure if disposal of products was included, but nuclear won. Still, over the lifetime of the plant, the returns in either case were distressingly small - between factors of 5 and 20 as I remember.
The refining of silicon must be pricey. Wind technology investment seems to be small.
How does this sort of energy investment/return enter into the overall equation?