China's wind capacity could reach 400GW after 2027: report

Offshore wind markets are expected to rise rapidly, a report said.

China’s wind power market is expected to reach a cumulative grid-connected capacity of more than 400GW by the end of 2027, with an average annual capacity addition of more than 20GW between 2018 and 2027, Make Consultancy said.

According to a report, China’s annual grid-connected capacity from 2018 to 2020 will be impacted by the curtailment and the transition from a feed-in tariff (FiT) to an auction mechanism, but average annual capacity additions from 2021 to 2027 will increase once the auction mechanism is established.

“Offshore wind and onshore repowering markets will increase rapidly, whilst annual onshore wind capacity growth remains flat,” the firm added. “Annual grid-connected capacity will surpass installed capacity in 2018 and will largely stay ahead of it through the rest of the outlook.”

An average annual installed capacity of 23GW is expected in 10 years, whilst the grid gap between installed and grid-connected capacity could decrease to less than 11GW by the end of 2027.

Meanwhile, cumulative installed capacity by the end of 2027 is expected to reach approximately 415GW. The cumulative grid-connected capacity by the end of 2020 is expected to exceed the national wind power target of 210GW set in China’s 13th Five-Year Plan for Wind Power.

“Wind developers, especially provincial state-owned and private enterprises, are looking for opportunities in the distributed wind market,” the firm said. This in turn could raise distributed wind projects’ capacity additions of to exceed 1GW from 2019, but the growth of distributed wind power is unlikely to have a meaningful impact as the capacity of single projects is small.

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) published the Notice regarding the 2018 Administrative Requirements of Wind Power Development on 24 May 2018 and officially launched the auction mechanism for future wind power awards.

“The influence of wind auctions on the near-term wind outlook will be limited,” Make Consultancy said.” Wind auctions are expected to start from the national wind bases in the Northern region. The earliest auctioned projects are not expected to begin construction until the second half of 2019 due to the lead-time required.”