In the process of global energy green transformation, the importance of wind power industry is gradually highlighted. With the development of land resources approaching saturation, offshore wind power will become the absolute focus of the development of global wind power industry.
At present, China’s offshore wind power industry has leapt to the first in the world in terms of scale, and the whole industry will usher in rapid development under the stimulation of double carbon policy. The research group of Chinese Academy of Engineering believes that the offshore wind power industry has broad prospects, but there is still a large gap between China’s overall industry level and the international top level.
At the end of 2019, the Chinese Academy of Engineering launched a major consulting and research project called “Research on the strategy of offshore wind power supporting China’s energy transformation and development” in Beijing, hoping to systematically analyze the current situation of industries outside China and provide a theoretical basis for the future development strategy and path planning of China’s offshore wind power industry.
Recently, the Chinese Academy of Engineering held a conclusion review meeting in Beijing to introduce to the participants the achievements of China’s offshore wind power industry over the years, the opportunities for the future development of the industry under the dual carbon goal, and the shortcomings still existing compared with the international leading level.
global offshore wind power ushers in a period of development opportunities
In recent years, the world’s major economies are exploring the path of energy transformation, and the renewable energy industry has attracted much attention. Among them, the wind power industry, especially the offshore wind power industry, has developed rapidly, and has moved from offshore to deep and far sea. The scale has reached the gigawatt level, and the offshore wind turbine has also developed to the level of more than 10 megawatts.
As the region with the earliest development of offshore wind power, Europe is still the region with the most full utilization of wind energy resources in the world, and has always maintained a leading edge in technology R & D, application and equipment manufacturing of wind power industry.
The global offshore wind power report 2021 released by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) shows that by the end of 2020, the global offshore wind power installed capacity is mainly concentrated in East Asia, Western Europe, northern Europe and the United States. Among them, the installed capacity of offshore wind power in the UK ranks first in the world, accounting for 28.9% of the total installed capacity in the world; China accounts for 28.3%, ranking second; Germany ranks third in the world with 21.9%.
In the Chinese market, offshore wind power surpassed in scale last year. According to the data released by the National Energy Administration on December 24 last year, the installed scale of offshore wind power in China has leapt to the first in the world in 2021.
In terms of resource endowment, China has more than 18000 kilometers of coastline, rich offshore wind energy resources, and the available sea area is more than 3 million square kilometers. Under the background of carbon peak and carbon neutralization policy, the top-level design clearly constructs a new power system with new energy as the main body, improves the power grid’s ability to absorb and regulate a high proportion of renewable energy, and the nine clean energy bases and four offshore wind power bases have opened up imagination space for China’s wind power, especially the offshore wind power industry.
GWEC pointed out that in the next decade, with the acceleration of global energy decarbonization trend, the rapid decline in the cost of offshore wind power, and the continuous progress in the commercialization and industrialization of floating wind power, offshore wind power will continue to maintain rapid growth. It is estimated that more than 235 GW of offshore wind power will be installed in the world in the next decade, and the cumulative installed capacity of global wind power will reach 270 GW in 2030.
the weakness of China’s wind power industry is obvious
After years of development, China has become a major wind power country in the world. The offshore wind power industry has made great progress in scale, equipment manufacturing and cost, but there is still a certain gap in the design and manufacturing of key parts compared with the top technical level of foreign countries.
Academician Liu Jizhen, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering and director of the State Key Laboratory of new energy power system, said that China has formed a relatively complete offshore wind power technology industry chain, established wind power industry bases in Dafeng, Jiangsu, Yangjiang, Guangdong and Fuqing, Fujian, and has the capacity to produce 10MW wind turbines, large transformers and submarine cables of various voltage levels, And experience in design, R & D, manufacturing, installation and operation of 400 MW offshore wind farm.
Tang Guangfu, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering, pointed out that China still has shortcomings and problems to varying degrees in all links of the wind power industry. For example, foreign offshore fan blades mostly adopt carbon fiber composite technology, but the supply of carbon fiber and its process equipment, as well as auxiliary raw materials such as high-performance adhesives and fabrics are in the hands of enterprises in Germany, Japan and other countries, while China is still dominated by glass fiber or carbon glass mixed process due to the limitation of technical level.
As the core component of bearings, the research on high-end precision bearings in China started late, and the design and manufacturing of spindle bearings are still far from the top level in foreign countries; In addition, China continues to tackle key problems in pitch system, high-voltage AC submarine cable and other equipment. The special design software for wind power basically comes from the United States, Germany and other countries. It is difficult to develop and lacks operation data verification. It belongs to the “neck” technology for the development of China’s wind power industry.
Academician Tang Guangfu suggested that we should vigorously promote the localization of key raw materials and the independent design and manufacturing of core equipment in the wind power industry, encourage self-developed wind power design software and public test platform, and actively explore new technologies for the development of offshore wind power.
Academician Zhou Xuhong’s research team pointed out that in terms of engineering construction, China has formed a relatively complete offshore wind power technology industry chain, but the overall level is still above the medium level, and there is still an obvious gap with the international advanced level; In the aspects of exploration engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, construction and operation and maintenance, there are problems such as lack of technical specification system, lack of advanced equipment and lack of experience of practitioners.
The trillion market faces the challenge of “parity”
The scale of offshore wind power investment is large, and the economic driving effect is obvious. Academician Zheng Jianchao’s research results pointed out that the later operation and maintenance of offshore wind power and its driving effect on other industries will drive the development of more than trillion level marine industrial clusters. At the same time, it will also promote the development and research of aerodynamics, material science, power electronics and other disciplines, and become an important driving force and economic growth pole for high-quality development in the region.
From the perspective of promoting industrial development, how to fill the missing parts of the industrial chain, optimize the layout of the industrial chain, avoid repeated construction, and accelerate the R & D breakthrough of key technologies are also testing the wisdom of the government, enterprises and all parties in the industrial chain.
2022 is the first year of China’s offshore wind power parity era. When the industry can quickly reduce the cost and achieve a high return on investment is a topic of concern both inside and outside the industry. It was generally expected in the industry that the full parity of offshore wind power would take another 3-5 years.
The research team of the Chinese Academy of Engineering pointed out that based on the existing technical level and the recent bidding price of wind turbines, calculated according to the capital return rate of 6%, Fujian, Guangdong and other regions with better resources and some areas with high benchmark electricity prices of coal power already have the conditions for parity construction, and there is still a penny gap between Jiangsu Province and parity.
Academician Liu Jizhen believes that it is still difficult to realize full parity Internet access for offshore wind power at present, but from the perspective of the whole industry chain and the whole cost, China’s wind power industry still has great room for cost reduction; From the current industrial reality, it is still very necessary for the state to give some policy support.
“We should not only see the kWh cost and electricity price of offshore wind power, but also consider the saving of land and resources, the development and utilization of marine resources and the potential value of carbon market. In this way, offshore wind power is cost-effective.” Academician Liu Jizhen said.
(21st Century Business Herald)
