Wind Power News: China
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They are the products of the organizations or individuals noted and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of National Wind Watch.
Goldwind staff counts falls 24% over 2012
CHINA: The number of Goldwind staff dropped by 24% over the course of 2012, taking its current headcount to to 3,558. A large proportion of Goldwind’s order pipleline is for its 2.5MW turbine (pictured) A large proportion of Goldwind’s order pipleline is for its 2.5MW turbine (pictured) The staff leaving Goldwind included vice-president Guo Jian, chief engineer Cui Weixin, and board directors Lu Houjun and Gao Zhong. In its 2012 figures, Goldwind revealed it made only CNY 153 million ($24 . . .
Ralls sues to void U.S. wind-farm purchase Obama blocked
Ralls Corp., the Chinese-owned company blocked on national security grounds from operating wind turbines near a U.S. Navy base in Oregon, asked a judge to void its agreement to buy assets for the project. President Barack Obama’s order blocking development of the wind project nullifies Ralls’s acquisition of the project’s property from Terna Energy Holding USA Corp., Ralls said in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Washington against a Delaware-incorporated unit of Terna Energy SA, a Greek energy . . .
Ming Yang turbine collapse kills one, injures three
A Ming Yang 1.5MW wind turbine collapsed in the course of commissioning, killing one and injuring three, on September 5 in northwest China’s Xinjiang province. The 66/1500 turbine toppled down in a Huaneng wind farm in Tuokexun county, eastern Xinjiang. Ming Yang said that according to preliminary analysis, the tower fell because the foundation bolts were not properly fastened in the course of turbine installation. This was exacerbated by the class I winds at the location. The company said management . . .
Official sidelined for fining wetlands wind developer
China Guodian Group last month escaped a CNY 5.59 million ($879,639) fine for building a wind farm in a protected wetland, with the official who imposed the penalty removed from his post. The utility’s Hefeng Wind Power Development subsidiary was originally hit with the fine in June after a swan was killed flying into its Linghai wind farm in Liaoning province. Linghai municipal forestry bureau, which issued the fine, said Guodian Hefeng had built the wind farm in the Linghekou . . .
Wind power being wasted
About 16 percent of the electricity generated by wind farms in northern China went unused in 2011, causing a loss of 6.6 billion yuan ($1.03 billion), the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) said Thursday. Unused wind-generated electricity amounted to 12.3 billion kilowatt-hours in northern China’s wind farms in 2011, SERC said in a report. The wastage in wind power was caused by several factors, such as power grid upgrades that have lagged behind the expansion of wind farms, insufficient transmission . . .
Guodian fined $600,000 for constructing wind farm in bird sanctuary
Guodian subsidiary Hefeng Wind Power Development, has been fined CNY 3.8 million ($603,174) for constructing a 20-turbine wind farm in a wetland that threatens the safety of birds. The company has been fined by the forestry administration of Linghai city, in northeast China’s Liaoning province. In March, a swan was killed at the wind farm, which was constructed in 2007. The wetland, a municipal level natural reserve stretching 80,000 hectares, is home to 1,024 species of wild fauna and flora, . . .
Vestas shuts Chinese turbine plant as demand cools
Vestas, the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturer, is closing a factory in China with the loss of up to 350 jobs, it said on Monday, just three days after scrapping plans for a factory in Britain as demand slides. Once a darling of investors, the renewable energy sector is struggling in the global economic slowdown as support for wind power and other renewable sources has been hit by government spending cuts and a downgrading of growth prospects. Earlier this month, . . .
Experts warn on China’s “reckless” wind power expansion
China plans to expand its offshore wind power installed capacity to 5 gigawatts by 2015 and 30 gigawats by 2020. The goal for the whole of Europe over the same period is 40 gigawatts, and 10 gigawatts for the U.S. Hebei province recently approved an offshore wind power project, China’s third, which will have totalled installed capacity of 560 megawatts. The two existing projects are the 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge Wind Power project in Shanghai and the Rudong Offshore Intertidal Zone . . .
Grid problems steer China’s huge wind power industry into financial doldrums
SHANGHAI — After years of nurturing China’s wind power sector to become the largest in the world, the nation’s policymakers now appear to have second thoughts. A succession of government policies issued during the past few months have begun pushing officials and developers to shift their focus from building more wind farms toward ensuring that more of the wind-generated electricity can flow into power grids safely. “China’s wind power sector used to focus on its development speed, but now more . . .
Chinese plan indicates fewer wind farms may win approval
China, the world’s biggest wind- power market, issued plans that may indicate it will approve fewer of the projects this year than it did in 2011. The National Energy Administration plans to approve 16.76 gigawatts of wind-power projects in 2012, Shi Lishan, deputy director of the administration’s renewable energy division, said by telephone today. That doesn’t include six provinces where extensive capacity has already been built or is planned and where new approvals will be considered separately, Shi said. China . . .
