WCA January 2016

19 / 72

17
Wire & Cable ASIA – January/February 2016
Industrynews
CHINA is urging its main wind and
solar power production provinces to
prioritise transmission of renewable
energy over conventional energy
sources in a move to get more clean
power onto the grid.
China has installed more wind farms
than any other country, but not all of
the power generated by the projects is
used due to curtailment, which is a
shortage of transmission capacity to
connect projects in remote regions to
end users.
Official data reveals that over 15 per
cent of energy generated by wind
power in the first half of 2015 suffered
from curtailment.
Grid companies generally favour
conventional energy sources, such as
coal and hydro power, over less stable
renewable energy sources that also
require more investment on grid
connections and government
subsidised feed-in tariffs.
National development and reform
commission has urged Gansu and
Inner Mongolia to launch pilot projects
to tackle the issue, including increasing
consumption of renewable energy
locally.
“Renewable energy should be given
priority, complemented by
conventional energy in a local network
with peak shaving, in order to reduce
the need for constructing grid capacity
to export electricity,” it advised.
Though the regions should build more
transmission lines to increase
outbound capacity, the authority also
urged them to attract more
energy-intensive industries from
China’s east, helping to better absorb
the supply of renewable energy locally.
According to the national energy
administration, average curtailment of
solar power in the country is nine per
cent, but in September in Gansu the
level reached 28 per cent.
China moves to more power
Nuclear plan
China plans to invest over $78 billion
to build 110 nuclear power plants by
2030. The investment exceeds that
of the USA, but Beijing is under
criticism for failing to implement
sufficient safety measures in existing
plants.
Beijing-based China Times revealed
that China will build six to eight
nuclear power plants annually for the
next five years and operate 110
plants by 2030 to meet the urgent
need for clean energy. According to
the same report, the country plans to
increase its electricity generation
capacity to 58GW by 2020, three
times the 2014 level.
China currently has 23 nuclear power
generating units in operation, with 27
under construction, about one-third
of the world’s unfinished nuclear
units.