China slashed its forecasts for offshore wind power by 60 percent, an acknowledgment that installations are being held up by the cost and complexity of the technology.
The nation is expected to install about 2,000 megawatts of capacity by 2015 and 10,000 megawatts by 2020, the National Energy Administration estimates. That’s less than the ambition in 2011 to generate 5,000 megawatts of power from offshore turbines by 2015 and 30,000 megawatts by 2020, enough for 32 million homes.
The estimates if they hold true would mark the first time China has missed one of its goals for renewable energy and is a setback for the $15 billion industry, which is seeking to produce a clean supply of electricity from one of nature’s most reliable energy sources.
Worldwide the fastest growing energy sources are
1. Coal (Since 1995, over 15,000 TWh added worldwide)
2. Natural gas (Since 1995, over 10,000 TWh added worldwide)
3. Hydro (Since 1995, over 1500 TWh added worldwide, up to 3663 TWh in 2012)
In 2011, 438TWh was produced by wind power.
World energy consumption in tons of oil equivalent
Non-electrical power is over six times larger than electrical power usage.
Offshore turbines represents a fraction of the 90 gigawatts of land-based wind turbines due to be connected to China’s power grid by the end of this year, the biggest concentration of the technology in the world.
China is moving slowly with offshore wind after its onshore wind industry expanded so quickly that the power infrastructure couldn’t keep up. As much as 12 percent of its onshore wind turbines weren’t connected to the grid in 2013. Another 11 percent of the turbines had grid connections and were idled because transmission lines couldn’t handle all the output.
SOURCES – BP, wikipedia, Bloomberg, Forbes
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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