Wind power - an important strategic choice to solve the shortage of China's electricity and energy

According to statistics, electricity generated by renewable energy like wind power is developing at the highest speed in world’s energy and electricity market in recent 10 years. The increase rate of solar power generation is as high as 30.9 percent, followed by 30.7 percent of wind power generation. The price of electricity generated by solar power is higher than that generated by wind power and fuel coal, because of the high cost of solar cell technology, which restricts the development of solar power. Wind Force 12: A Blueprint to Achieve 12% of the World's Electricity from Wind Power by 2020 is signed recently by European Wind Energy Association and Greenpeace. It states that by 2020, the installed volume of global wind power generation will reach 1.2 billion kilowatts, 38 times that of 2002; wind power generation will account for 12 percent of the world’s total, and becomes the most important alternative energy in the future.

The maturity of wind power technology contributes to the rapid growth of wind power generation. At present, the production of wind turbine generating sets with individual capacities of 500, 600, and 750 kilowatts has reached the level of commercial production. This kind of wind turbine generating sets have become the main model of the world’s wind power generation. The sets with larger and better capacities have also been developed and operated experimentally. For example, some wind farms newly established in Denmark have individual capacities of over 2 megawatts. The design and manufacture of vanes of new wind turbine generating sets use new technologies and new materials, as well as new electronic and calculating technologies, which has effectively improved and advanced the overall designing capability and level of wind power generation.

Because of the application of new technologies, the price of wind power that draws most of concerns is decreasing rapidly, and approaching the cost of coal-generated electricity gradually. For example, in the US, the cost of wind turbine generating set has dropped from US$ 1,333 in 1990 to US$ 790 in 2000. The cost of electricity generation has also decreased from 8 US cents per kilowatt-hour to 4 US cents, and is expected to reach about 3 US cents per kilowatt-hour in 2005 and almost equal the cost level of conventional electricity generation equipment. The life span of wind power generation equipment is 20 to 25 years. The operational expenses of this equipment is equal to only 4 percent of the cost of the equipment set. Experts anticipate that the cost would reduce by 15 percent as the capacity of world’s wind power generation doubles.