The old fan is "laid off", and the new fan is "on"!

When 10 megawatt wind turbines shoulder the "burden" of upgrading old wind farms, how can these unprecedented onshore "giants" create a new legend of wind chasing? The reporter of "China Electric Power News" went deep into the front line of Huadian Muling Ten Characters Project to see how the old wind farm can achieve "rebirth" with the power of large megawatt wind turbines.

When China's wind power industry makes a leap from large-scale construction to stock rejuvenation, a deep change that runs through technological tackling, policy ice-breaking and industrial chain restructuring is exploring a path in the replacement of wind turbines in black soil.

On the banks of the Mudanjiang River, on the Muling Ridge, a 140-meter-high hybrid tower wind turbine pierces the morning mist, and the blades of the 1.3 megawatt old unit are waiting to be dismantled and renewed - this was once the first megawatt wind farm in Heilongjiang Province, and now it is undergoing a "rebirth" transformation.

Technical breakthrough:

The new unit awakens the black soil "wind" bonanza

Twenty years ago, China's wind power industry was moving from the embryonic period of commercial exploration to large-scale construction.At that time, based on Heilongjiang's abundant wind resources, Huadian Group built the province's first megawatt unit wind power project - Muling Shiwen Wind Farm.Today, this wind farm, which carries the imprint of industry exploration, has opened the road of equal capacity transformation and upgrading after the passage of time.

"The first phase of the original Muling Shiwen Wind Farm uses 25 foreign brand units with a single capacity of only 1.3 megawatts. Before the transformation, the unit had been in service for more than 17 years, and the stability and power generation efficiency of the equipment had long been inferior to before, and it had entered the elimination period. Peng Hai, service manager of Sany Renewable Energy Muling Ten Characters Project, introduced to China Energy Media reporters.In December 2024, the first phase of the wind farm was upgraded, and three 9 MW wind turbines tailored by Sany Renewable Energy for Huadian successfully "took over", realizing localization substitution, increasing the impeller diameter from 60 meters to 230 meters, and achieving a leapfrog upgrade in wind catching capacity and power generation level.

Wind resource conditions determine the "fate" of power generation of the project. After the transformation of the first phase of Muling, the hub of the three 9 MW units rose to 140 meters, more than twice as high as the old units, directly extending the "wind chasing tentacles" to areas with more superior wind resource conditions."The wind speed increases exponentially with altitude, and the average wind speed at an altitude of 140 meters can increase by more than 20% compared with the altitude of 70 meters." Wu Baoxin, deputy director of Sany Renewable Energy Solution Center, explained.

The data also confirms the achievements of transformation and upgrading. It is understood that after the transformation of the first phase of Muling, a single unit generated 2.46 million kWh in April, and the total monthly power generation of three units was 6.5 million kWh, and the annual power generation is expected to reach 240 million kWh after the project is put into operation at full capacity, which is nearly 3 times higher than that before the transformation.

Standing next to the three 9 megawatt wind turbines that have been connected to the grid in the first phase of Muling Shiwen, project manager Peng Hai pointed to the second phase of the construction site: "Look at the five 10 megawatt units that are being commissioned over there, they and the three units of the first phase will completely replace those 'old guys' on the mountain." The "old guy" he calls is the old unit of the second phase of the project with a single capacity of only about 1.5 megawatts that has been in service for many years, which not only has frequent failures, but also occupies a lot of mountain space. "Now the eight large wind turbines are 'one to thirty', the land utilization rate has doubled, and the operation and maintenance manpower has also been greatly streamlined."Supporting these steel giants is a special concrete structure – assembled on site from up to 31 sections of precast concrete rings, with internal prestressed steel beams at its core.

"The tensile tensile of concrete pressure-bearing and prestressed steel cables is 30% lower than that of pure steel towers, and is more suitable for high-wind shear areas in Northeast China." Peng Hai patted the installed concrete tower section and explained, "But quality control is the key, from the rust removal of steel bars to the compactness of concrete pouring, every link has to be stared at." ”

Intelligent operation and maintenance build a "zero-failure" line of defense. Hundreds of miles away, at the site of the Heilongjiang Huadian Ning'an Fengshui Mountain 200 MW wind power project (hereinafter referred to as "Ning'an Fengshui Mountain"), which has been running stably, the background system scans thousands of sensor data in real time. "The small hidden danger is dealt with before it breaks down." Qi Jiaxin, service manager of Sany Renewable Energy Ning'an Fengshui Mountain, showed the first batch of units for 60 consecutive days of trouble-free operation. Strict quality control and intelligent operation and maintenance work together to build a solid foundation for the safe and stable operation of the unit.

Breakthrough:

Technical standards and policy mechanisms are two-wheel drive

When the welding spark at the Muling construction site splashes, deeper challenges surface. According to the forecast of the China Wind Energy Association, the "Three Norths" will reach 38 million kilowatts in 2025, while the current transformation progress is less than 10%.

One of the key issues is the unresolved electricity price connection mechanism.As the country's first pilot of "replacing small with large", Zhongwei Xiangshan Project has explored the model of "equal capacity extension and capacity increase bidding", but most provinces have not yet clarified the electricity price rules.

In addition, the "where to place" a large number of retired units has also become a constraint on the transformation and upgrading of wind farms.The old units dismantled by some renovation projects can only be dissolved locally, and even some areas can only be allowed to accumulate "scrap iron mountains". According to China's Haizhong estimates, 2 million kilowatts of renovation will generate 30,000 tons of leaf waste. "Epoxy resin leaves are landfilled with polluted soil, and the cost of chemical recycling exceeds 10,000 yuan per ton." A wind power industry insider called for the willWind power equipmentRemanufacturing should be included in the policy to cultivate circular industry chains such as leaf fiberglass resin.

In the face of the dilemma, the Northeast is groping for the key to solving the problem.Policy relaxation releases space. In January 2024, the Heilongjiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission issued the "2024 Heilongjiang Province Wind Farm Renovation, Upgrading and Decommissioning Work Implementation Plan" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), taking the lead in breaking capacity restrictions: allowing the combination of "equal capacity + capacity increase", and increasing the capacity of a single unit to more than 5 megawatts.The Plan points out that wind farms that have been connected to the grid for more than 15 years or have a single unit capacity of less than 1.5 megawatts are encouraged to carry out transformation and upgrading. The project unit can choose to increase capacity transformation or equivalent capacity transformation based on the actual situation of the project and its own development needs, and increase the average single unit capacity of the renovated wind farm to more than 5 megawatts, and the average annual equivalent utilization hours will reach more than 2,500 hours.

However, the implementation of the local new policy is only the first step in breaking the ice.At present, the remanufacturing and reuse of wind turbines in our country is almost a blank field, and the development of the material recycling industry is not perfect. Some wind farms have repeatedly blocked capacity expansion plans due to ecological red lines. These "hard bones" are difficult to gnaw on the strength of a province alone, and it is urgent to make overall plans at the national level.Industry experts said that the country urgently needs to promote the pilot demonstration of "replacing small with large" wind turbines that have reached the design life cycle, and promote "retirement of old and new" through demonstration. The content of the pilot demonstration should include policy implementability, electrical equipment transformation, demolition and recycling.Han Lei, senior engineer of the solution of the Jianheng Certification Center, believes that the technical transformation of wind power is not only for inefficient units with obvious performance, but should carry out economic and safety evaluation of technical transformation in the whole wind resource situation and the healthy operation status of the unit, so as to improve the utilization rate of resources as much as possible and revitalize the assets of old units.

The circular economy is digesting "wind power garbage". More companies are exploring the path of green power hydrogen production and ammonia storage, which not only absorbs the volatile power generation of renovation projects, but also transforms old wind farms into energy bases for zero-carbon industries. On the road to renewal, only by opening up the full-cycle chain of "decommissioning-recycling-regeneration-application" can we truly realize the all-round transformation of old wind farms from equipment renewal to ecological value.