The capacity accounts for more than 77%! In the next ten years, the growth of the wind power market will have to rely on onshore?

China Energy Network (public number hxny3060) learned that recently, the consulting agency Wood Mackenzie Wind Power Research Team released the "China on shore wind power outlook 2023" ("China onshore wind power market outlook 2023"). The report mentions that China's onshore wind power market will account for more than 77% of new capacity in the next decade, and the average annual installed capacity will exceed 59GW during the forecast period.

This report shows optimism about the onshore wind market, which means that in the next ten years, the growth of China's wind power market will depend on onshore wind power.

The reality is that China is setting off a round of offshore wind power development, and enterprises in all parts of the wind power industry chain are also taking offshore wind power as a business development focus, one of the important reasons is that "good onshore wind resources have been basically developed".

Judging from the data, it is estimated that the total reserves of wind energy resources in the country are about 3.226 billion kilowatts, and the onshore wind energy reserves that can be developed and utilized are 253 million kilowatts, while the wind energy reserves that can be developed and utilized offshore are as high as 750 million kilowatts, which is about three times that of the former, not including the deep sea where wind energy resources are more abundant.

In terms of resource endowment, development direction and degree of development, the future increase of domestic wind power should come from offshore, and Wood Mackenzie's view is somewhat surprising.

Where does the increment come from?

Wood Mackenzie said the 14th Five-Year Plan for renewable energy targets is a major driver of China's onshore wind market in the short to medium term. China's 14th Five-Year Plan for renewable energy targets was officially launched in June last year. At that time, the 14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan") jointly issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration and other nine departments showed that by 2025, the country's annual renewable energy generation capacity will reach about 3.3 trillion kilowatt hours, and wind and solar power generation will double.

According to the requirements of the plan, by 2025, the new installed capacity of wind power will reach 300GW, the cumulative installed capacity will reach 581GW, and the average annual installed capacity of wind power will be about 65GW from 2023 to 2025. In order to complete the installation target, the "plan" also proposes to support the development of major bases, clearly focus on deserts, Gobi and desert areas, and accelerate the construction of new energy bases on seven continents, including the upper reaches of the Yellow River, the Hexi Corridor, the Yellow River Jiziwan, northern Hebei, Songliao, Xinjiang, and the lower reaches of the Yellow River, as well as two comprehensive water and wind power bases in southeast Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Guizhou, and five offshore wind power base clusters.

Wood Mackenzie said on the onshore wind front, the central and provincial governments have released a combined pipeline of more than 530GW to support the continued growth of the market. At the same time, Wood Mackenzie also pointed out that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, it is expected that 65GW of large wind power base projects will be connected to the grid. Under the guidance of the Plan, since the 14th Five-Year Plan, China has been accelerating the construction of large bases focusing on deserts, Gobi and desert areas. At present, the first batch of large base projects has entered the peak period of production, the second batch of large base projects have started construction one after another, and the third batch of large base project list has been made and issued.

Not long ago, on December 10, the wind power base on the mainland in operation in China was put into operation at full capacity. Located in Xing'an League, Inner Mongolia, the base has installed a total of 701 wind turbines with a capacity of up to 3 million kilowatts. In addition to the new market dominated by large wind power bases, Wood Mackenzie also proposed that the new installed capacity of onshore wind power also comes from the wind power renovation market. Since the beginning of this century, China's wind power has gradually entered the stage of industrialization development, and the overall installed capacity has shown an expansion trend, and today, the world's largest wind power market has been established. According to the calculation of the 20-year design life of wind turbines, the wind turbines put into operation in the early stage have faced a retirement period.

In addition, due to the technical limitations of wind turbines, the capacity of wind turbines invested in the early stage of China is relatively small, even less than 1 megawatt, which makes wind energy resources unable to be fully utilized. At the same time, the wind turbines put into operation in the early stage also face many problems such as high operation and maintenance costs, safety and stability. Therefore, the technical transformation of wind farms has become very urgent, and the market potential is huge. At the end of 2022, the "White Paper on Technological Transformation and Upgrading of China's Wind Farms" jointly released by Jianheng Certification Center and others shows that considering the cumulative installed capacity, the proportion of models and the operation time, without excluding the installed capacity of wind power plants that have been completed, the potential unit replacement space of China's old wind farms (1.5MW and below) is close to 100GW, and the stock space (operating for more than 10 years) with more urgent transformation needs is about 75GW.

According to Wood Mackenzie, the onshore wind retrofit market is showing strong growth in the medium to long term, with nearly 62GW of old wind turbines to be refurbished during the forecast period, helping China become the world's largest refurbishment market.