China is leading the race for offshore wind, setting a new record year for turbine installations in 2021, according to the World Forum Offshore Wind (WFO)’s annual report.
China FIT
China connected 16.9 GW of offshore wind capacity to the grid in 2021, the latest data from the country’s National Energy Administration has shown.
According to Asia Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory (AECEA), this huge capacity may not be met by actual demand in the global market. Furthermore, the consultancy reveals that solar module prices should reach a price level of up to RMB 1.75 ($028)/W by the second half of the year, and that in 2021 new PV additions totaled 53 GW with more than half of this capacity being delivered by distributed generation.
Several gigawatts of offshore wind capacity were added to the Chinese grid in the final weeks of 2021 to beat the announced scrapping of feed-in tariffs, according to Windpower Intelligence, the data and research division of Windpower Monthly.
According to new forecasts from AECEA, China may see strong development of large-scale solar plants this year, due to a massive pipeline of unsubsidized projects. Furthermore, the distributed generation segment will be boosted by incentives provided by the national and regional governments.
onstruction of wind power in China, offshore and onshore, nearly tripled in 2020 over the previous year, hitting a new record of nearly 72 GW, according to data released Jan. 20 by the country’s National Energy Administration.
The long-awaited new FiT system awards capacity through a reverse auction with interested parties bidding for a premium to be paid on top of regional benchmark electricity prices. It replaces the old scheme halted suddenly in May last year, the so-called 531 New Deal.
hina’s National Energy Administration announced Monday that a total of 5.2 gigawatts (GW) of solar was installed during the first quarter while, at the same time, the Price Bureau of China’s National Development and Reform Commission finally published its solar Feed-in Tariff policy for 2019 on Tuesday.
Whilst the government’s 5/31 New Policy announcement undoubtedly slowed installations, there was still 20 GW of large-scale, ground-mounted PV installed after the policy u-turn, after only 3.6 GW had been installed in the opening five months of the western calendar year.
China’s feed-in tariff — which was capped in May, much to the surprise of the global solar industry — would be set aside in these regions and local governments would be given freedom and encouraged to provide the necessary technical and regulatory support to spur development, and to even introduce their own feed-in tariffs if they wish.
