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China Eyes Mountainous Tibet’s Ample Wind for Clean Energy
The isolated region known as the rooftop of the world could host 600
gigawatts of turbines, but development will be challenging
![](images/images_04_18_2022/pic%201.png)
Turbines at a wind farm near Golmud in Qinghai province in September
2021.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
April 18, 2022
China has identified enough wind energy
potential in Tibet to power the U.K., Germany and France combined, and
plans to further develop the region to help meet its ambitious climate
targets.
Tibet has enough sites with strong, steady wind to install 600
gigawatts of turbines, with another 420 gigawatts possible in parts of
the plateau in neighboring regions including Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan,
Yunnan and Xinjiang, China’s National Climate Center said in a report
last month. The National Energy Administration followed up shortly
after with a guidance to accelerate construction of clean energy bases
in Tibet.
Blowing Down
Wind turbine prices in China have plunged even as they climb elsewhere
Source: BloombergNEF
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Just because the potential is there doesn’t necessarily mean the power
generation will follow. Poor roads will make transporting equipment
difficult, thin air might make turbines less efficient, and it will be
costly to build power lines needed to distribute electricity to more
populous areas. Tibet has only 4.8 gigawatts of total installed power
capacity, the lowest in the country, with just 30 megawatts of wind
turbines, according China Electricity Council data.
Still, the lofty numbers add to a general feeling of optimism in the
Chinese wind industry, which has managed to bring down prices to
record-low levels even as costs have risen for everything from coal to
natural gas to solar panels and even turbines abroad. Qin Haiyan,
chief secretary of the Chinese Wind Energy Association, said in a
recent interview with China Times that the cost of electricity from
wind turbines will be halved again in the next three to five years,
and that the country’s wind resource potential “has no ceiling.”
With assistance from Dan Murtaugh and Luz Ding
Up Next :China Offers More Detail on Xi's Desert Clean Power Mega-Hub
China Offers More Detail on Xi's Desert Clean Power
Mega-Hub
Giant renewable energy complex will mainly be built after 2025,
country’s main grid operator says.
![](images/images_04_18_2022/pic%202.png)
Photovoltaic panels at a solar farm operated by Yellow River Power in
Gonghe County, Qinghai province, China.
April 14, 2022
The majority of China’s massive desert
renewable power project will be built after 2025, and most of the
capacity in the first phase will come from solar, according to a
researcher from the country’s largest grid operator.
The details fill in some gaps about the country’s plans to build 455
gigawatts of wind and solar power across the country’s vast desert
expanses, which were announced by President Xi Jinping in October.
Researchers and officials spoke Thursday at an event in Beijing hosted
by the China Electricity Council and solar manufacturing giant Longi
Green Energy Technology Co.
About 200 gigawatts will be installed before 2025, with another 255
gigawatts coming between 2026 and 2030, according to Li Qionghui, a
researcher with the State Grid Corp. of China. Of the pre-2025
projects, about 50 gigawatts will be fed into local grids while 150
will connect to long-distance transmission lines, she said. Post-2025,
about 90 gigawatts are expected to be local with 165 destined for
far-away use.
A first batch of 97 gigawatts will connect to the grid through 2023
and will comprise of about 60% solar and 40% wind, Li said.
The massive build-out will help increase clean energy generation that
will eventually help the country meet its goals of peaking carbon
emissions by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2060.
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China Eyes Mountainous Tibet’s Ample Wind for
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Read more: China’s New Renewable Project Rivals All Wind and Solar in
India
Including the desert projects, China will install 500 gigawatts of
wind and solar between 2021 and 2025, and as much as 700 gigawatts in
the second half of the decade, said Shi Jingli, a researcher with the
National Development and Reform Commission. That would bring the
country’s renewable capacity to more than 1,700 gigawatts by the end
of the decade, far exceeding central government targets.
In the near term, though, clean energy in
the desert will rely on coal power plants as backup to provide steady
streams of electrons to the grid, Shi said. The country will build new
coal plants and upgrade old ones to provide the balancing capacity.
“It is not feasible to only transmit wind and solar power,” Shi said
at the event Thursday.
China has come under scrutiny for its continued support of the
dirtiest fossil fuel despite increasingly dire warnings from climate
scientists about the world’s current warming path. Chinese
lenders have helped coal companies raise about $10 billion selling
bonds so far this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show, more than
double the same period of 2021.
Also at Thursday’s event, Longi’s president Li Zhenguo called on the
solar industry to focus on improving the efficiency of its products
amid rising prices. Enhancing solar technology to produce more power
from each cell is the best way to reduce costs in the longer term, he
said.
Solar prices have remained high this year after a surprise rally in
2021 following a decade of steady declines. Still, the increases have
been relatively small compared to soaring costs of power plant fossil
fuels like coal and natural gas.
As a company in the downstream of the solar supply chain, Longi does
not have complete control on prices of modules, Li said. He expects
solar prices to stabilize soon, and any further increases will likely
be the result of continued high demand for panels, he said.
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