China made remarkable progress in wind power development in 2007 and the industry will expect further regulatory boost in the coming years.

China Electricity Council, an industry association, said the wind power sector generated electricity of 5.6 billion kilowatt hours last year, a growth of 95.2 percent over the previous year. The growth rate was 22 percentage points higher than the year before.

According to Zhang Guobao, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planning agency has taken a string of measures to support the exploration of wind power. Included were conducting surveys of wind resources, organizing biddings for franchise of large wind power projects, and promoting localization of domestically produced wind power equipment.

All these policies have paid off, Zhuang said.

In future years, the government may deregulate the approval of wind power projects, he added

China had wind power facilities with a combined installed capacity of 6.05 million kW at the end of 2007, increasing from 2.67 million kW a year earlier. It has achieved the goal set for the 2010 three years ahead of schedule.

Wind power projects that are being built involve a combined installed capacity of 4.2 million kW, Zhang said.

Now China ranks the fifth in the world in terms of wind power installed capacity, still far behind Germany, which is the top wind power producer with a total installed capacity of 20.62 million kW.

China plans to increase its wind power equipment to a combined installed capacity of 10 million kW by 2015, and to 30 million kW by 2020.

In a related development, China had electricity generating equipment with a total installed capacity of 713 million kW at the end of 2007, and the year saw the country generate 3.26 trillion kWh of electricity.

(China Daily February 9, 2008)