The Great Leap forward in China's Wind Power Continues the Industry's "Old Trauma"

China's largest wind power operator Longyuan Power Group Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as Longyuan Power) is one of the first offshore wind power bid winners. Xie Changjun, general manager of the company, said that the imperfections in policies and regulations and the unstable quality of fan products made it impossible for China’s offshore wind power construction to replicate the miracle of onshore wind power. “Longyuan is still alive and well as a land wind power, and doing offshore wind power is now somewhat seasick.”

“First Offshore Wind Power” Progressed Slowly There were a total of four tenders for the first batch of offshore wind power projects in China. The construction sites were all in Jiangsu, with a total scale of 1 million kilowatts.

On September 10, 2010, after the bidding results led by the Big Five Power Group were announced, the bid price was unexpectedly low. Among them, Datang New Energy Co., Ltd.'s coastal offshore 300,000 kilowatts project won the bid price of 0.7370 yuan per kilowatt-hour; China Electric Power Investment Co., Ltd.'s Sheyang offshore 300,000 kilowatt project was 0.7047 yuan per kilowatt-hour; Shandong Luneng The Group's Dongtai intertidal zone 200,000 kilowatts project is 0.6235 yuan per kilowatt-hour; Longyuan Power's Dafeng intertidal zone 200,000 kilowatt project is 0.6396 yuan per kilowatt-hour.

The development of offshore wind power is much more difficult than onshore wind power. Its power generation technology lags behind that of land-based wind power generation for about ten years, and its cost is two to three times higher. Prior to this, China's first offshore wind demonstration project - Shanghai Donghai Bridge 100,000-kilowatt offshore wind farm project, after-tax electricity tariff was 0.978 yuan per kilowatt-hour.

The low price bid means that the company can hardly have a good return. Xie Changjun stated that Longyuan Power's feasibility study budget for a 30-kilowatt tidal inter-zone wind farm in Rudong, Jiangsu Province is estimated to cost nearly 20,000 yuan per kilowatt, and through continuous improvement and improvement of the construction plan, the cost can be controlled at 1.5 kilowatts per kilowatt. Under million, the annual operation of 2600-2700 hours, according to 0.6396 yuan per kilowatt-hour of the bid price, the return on equity is about 12%. With the expansion of the construction scale and the investment in various new types of equipment, the construction cost of offshore wind power can be further reduced. However, he advises companies that want to enter this industry, "If you want to make a lot of money, do not do offshore wind power, and don't have money to do more."

The government’s prior work was not in place and it had unreasonably increased the cost of the company. In the preparatory process of the project, the successful bidder must first make a resource survey and assessment according to the preselected location of the offshore wind power planning in Jiangsu Province. However, when the appraisal is submitted for the development application, the project location is known to conflict with the port, nature reserve or fishery area. Ten thousand or even more than ten million yuan of investment in the previous stage was overdone. Xie Changjun complained that the government should do a good job of the preliminary work. After the first batch of tenders, Jiangsu changed its maritime plans, resulting in many of the earlier tasks of Longyuan Power. "We also spent a lot of money in the early exploration. The local government did not pay the money."

In addition, he said that one of the reasons for the slower speed of offshore wind power development is the lack of construction experience and, more importantly, the lack of suitable wind turbines.

In Jiangsu Rudong 30 MW test wind farm, Longyuan Power tested 16 wind turbines from eight manufacturers. After more than a year of operation, the best-performing wind turbines came from Long-Term Energy, which had a 98% availability rate. Many large manufacturers did not perform as well as Jiangsu's unrecognized company. For example, Sinovel has invested two 3000-kilowatt offshore wind turbines. For more than one year of operation, there has been a change of motor.

Insiders pointed out that one of the reasons why Sinovel’s wind power is far superior to its peers on the land is that it relies on its after-sales service to make up for the defects in product quality, unlike many manufacturers who sell their equipment. In the offshore wind turbine test, Huarui sent more than 70 maintenance crews to stay there every day, but offshore wind power maintenance is not as easy as onshore.

“The method of land-based wind power relying on high-quality services to make up for lack of reliability can no longer be applied to offshore wind farms.” Fan Xiaohong, former general manager of Shanghai Electric Wind Power Equipment Co., Ltd., said that compared with onshore wind power, offshore wind power needs to be extremely high. The stability, once it becomes a problem with large parts, takes several months to repair, and this is still a test on the beach, if it is more difficult to install at sea.

Deng Ling, deputy general manager of Datang New Energy Corporation shares the same feeling. He said that the reliability, design scheme and control strategy of wind turbines all need to be certified. The requirements for reliability at sea are different from those on land. When the wind speed at sea is high, the wind turbines cannot be approached even if they are damaged. Major faults and minor faults can't be made."

Ye Hangye, chief engineer of Zhejiang Yunda Wind Power Co., Ltd. also believes that “first consider reliability and quality, followed by cost.” He mentioned that in Fujian, a wind turbine of a company’s offshore wind farm was blown by a typhoon “catfish”. Bad things.

Xie Changjun said that on the surface, China's wind turbine manufacturers have mastered many core technologies, and the availability rate of wind turbines has approached Vestas, GE and other international giants, but it takes a long time to debug and it is difficult to compete with international giants. Xu Wei, president of Vestas, China, said that Vestas has also learned many lessons from the first wind farm. At that time, many equipments needed to be replaced and even replaced on shore. Today, the company can install more than 100 wind turbines in just 102 days on one project.

Xie Changjun believes that Chinese manufacturers should first solve the problem of land-based wind turbines and then study offshore wind turbines. Meng Lingbin also reminded that manufacturers that are rapidly developing high-capacity offshore wind turbines still need to look back at the problems left by land-based wind turbines. “We used to focus on sales and neglected the upgrading of more than 40 million kilowatts of onshore wind power equipment.”