Also, the power produced would have to be transmitted thousands of miles to high-energy demand areas on the densely populated coast in order to make a profit, a feat that is impossible today because of the lack of long-distance transmission technology or the funding to install it. One solution would be international assistance. "The U.S. also has to transmit wind power over long distances. The two countries can have technological cooperation," says engineer He Dexin, president of CWEA, who has been promoting wind energy since 1980.
The U.S. has infrastructure issues, too, such as aging and regionally constrained electrical grids, and Europe sometimes sees delays in connecting turbines to its grid. But getting intermittent wind turbines to work properly with the existing grid is "indeed a problem in China, much more so than in Europe and the U.S.," says Angelika Pullen, GWEC's communications director.
In the longer run, grid reconciliation is "not a real obstacle," NDRC's Li says. Half of China's grids were built in the past four years (70 percent in this century). They can be upgraded with better technologies. "We will improve our grids and build new ones to catch up with the wind power boom. We can work it out," he says.
One advantage in China—the cost of producing a turbine there is 70 percent of the international cost, Li says. China-made wind power devices accounted for 75 percent of the technology installed at Chinese wind farms in 2008, up from 57 percent in 2007, according to CWEA, thanks in part to central and local government mandates that require an ever-growing percentage of equipment at a wind farm in China be made domestically. For example, the NDRC stipulates in a 2005 regulation that wind farms cannot be built when the percentage is lower than 70.
But the quality of homegrown wind turbines is a serious problem. Many of the roughly 70 turbine manufacturing companies in China were set up in just the past four years. "Turbine producers need to test-use their products, especially their first ones, but some give no time to the step," He says. Some turbines cannot be used when they are installed, and some develop broken blades or cracked axes just a few weeks after they begin to operate.
And some wind farms have been built where there is not enough wind to ensure consistent generation of power, He adds. "The wind power sector is growing too fast. It needs to be stable for a period so that there can be a sustainable development in the long term," he says.
Despite these issues, government continues to chase the wind, setting the price for renewable power as high as 0.61 yuan per kilowatt-hour in July, about 10 percent higher than current prices for electricity from such installations. Wind farms also sell carbon credits at between 6 and 12 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour. "They are major players in China's carbon trading," Li says.
And the links between alternative energy, economic development and climate change pertain no less in China than elsewhere in the world. Harvesting wind power may be key to reining in China's emissions of greenhouse gases. "Our study shows that it is financially feasible to have wind as an important alternative to coal as a source of energy for electricity generation in China," says Wang Yuxuan, associate professor of environmental science and engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who co-authored the September 11 Science paper. "It is possible for China to use wind power on a large scale and to eliminate much, if not all of the CO2 expected to be emitted by the power sector over the foreseeable future."