Reference News Network January 7 report, according to the Japanese "Mainichi Shimbun" website January 6 report, while Japan and European countries have been hesitant, China is steadily increasing its offshore wind power capacity. According to statistics from the Global Wind Energy Council, in the early years of the second decade of the 21st century, China's annual new offshore wind power capacity was significantly behind European countries; by 2017, China's annual new offshore wind power capacity exceeded 1 gigawatt for the first time, and then showed a significant growth trend: 2 gigawatts added in 2019, 3 gigawatts in 2020, and 16.9 gigawatts in 2021. China's growth rate is far ahead.
The result is that in the current global offshore wind power map, China has a dominant advantage.
As of 2024, the cumulative installed capacity of global offshore wind power reached 83.2 gigawatts, with China accounting for more than 50%, standing at 41.8 gigawatts, firmly ranking first in the world. Other countries are clearly lagging behind. For example, the second and third places in the world, the UK and Germany, had 15.9 gigawatts and 9.2 gigawatts of offshore wind power capacity respectively, while Japan only had 0.3 gigawatts.
The report stated that the core driving force behind China's rapid development of offshore wind power lies in the cost advantage brought by economies of scale.
China is the world's largest electricity consumer. Previous forecasts have shown that the total social electricity consumption across the country will exceed 10 trillion kilowatt-hours by 2025.
Under the stimulus of demand, Chinese wind turbine manufacturers and component suppliers have rapidly grown. Increased order volumes have reduced the production costs of individual units, and the price reduction brought about by large-scale production has attracted more power generation companies to enter the offshore wind power sector, thus creating greater demand and production, forming a "positive cycle".
The report said that China can purchase rare earth resources, which are essential for wind power equipment manufacturing, domestically. China is currently gradually building an almost complete self-sufficient supply chain system for all offshore wind power equipment components. In contrast, European and American manufacturers are struggling in a vicious cycle of high costs and reduced orders, and the gap between the two is further widening.
Industry insiders revealed: "The price of large wind turbines produced in China is about half that of similar products in Europe and the United States." Chinese wind turbines are not only exported to Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, but also applied in European wind power projects. China is accelerating the research and development of floating wind power technology, showing a trend of possibly gaining control of the entire global offshore wind power industry chain.
"Due to the huge market size and government encouragement of related industries, China's offshore wind power development is significantly faster than other countries," said Chief Researcher Chizawa Chiaki of Mitsubishi Research Institute. "In order to build a stable wind turbine procurement system, Japan needs to support its domestic industry to develop the production capacity as a global supplier." (Translated by Ma Xiaoyun)
Original: toutiao.com/article/7592480142547599882/
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