Welcome to IEA Wind Member Country Activities for Chinese Wind Energy Association 2011

China is a country striving for sustainable economic development, speedy industrialization, and urbanization. As a result, energy demand is rising, and China is facing the challenge of how to guarantee a sustainable energy supply for economic development, while building a stable, clean, and safe energy supply system. In March 2011, the Chinese government promulgated the outline of the 12th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, which included measures such as “conservation priority, domestic-based, development diversification, environment protection, strengthen mutually beneficial international cooperation, adjust and optimize structure, build a safe, stable economical and clean modern energy industrial system.” These measures will be adopted to push forward the transformation of energy production and utilization.

The Renewable Energy Law of the People’s Republic of China (Amendment) was implemented in 2010. This law established a system to guarantee the purchase of electricity generated by renewable energy and established a renewable energy development fund. The law listed the renewable energy industry as one of the seven key new strategic industries to be developed during 12th Five-year Plan. This has further promoted the development of wind energy in China.

In 2011, 17.6 GW of new wind power capacity was installed in China and total installed capacity reached 62.4 GW. Although this capacity is the largest of any country in the world, compared with conventional energy in China, wind power is a very small portion of China’s energy mix. In the future, wind power could play a more important role in Chinese clean and sustainable energy and electricity supply.

In 2011, the Chinese Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission worked with IEA and other Chinese organizations to create the China Wind Energy Development Roadmap 2050. This roadmap put forward the strategic development target and scenarios of Chinese wind power in 2030 and 2050. For the near term, wind energy development in China will focus on onshore, and offshore wind energy will be developed as appropriate. The mix of distributed off-grid and grid-connected generating systems to be developed will depend on the regional needs within China.