Our top picks of China clean energy market updates from last week:
- HYDROGEN: National fuel-cell subsidy demo result is expected to come out before the Chinese new year; Power-to-gas continues to be trending in China, with Inner Mongolia’s recent H2 development plan announced to support P2G projects.
- Policy: State Power Investment Corp (SPIC) becomes China’s first energy state-owned company to commit to an emission peak date, which is 7 years ahead of the national goal.
- WIND: Industrial expert predicts that 18.6GW offshore wind projects would be subsidy-free.
- SOLAR: Solar is expected to surpass wind to become China’s 3rd largest power source; in the next five year, the industry expects 70-90GW new capacity to be added to the system every year.
Please scroll down for the nine updates last week.
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Major
State Power Investment Corp Pledges to Peak Carbon Emission in 3 Years
State Power Investment Corp (SPIC), one of the top five power producers in China, commits to cap its carbon emissions by 2023, company chairman QIAN Zhimin announced in a speech.
Energy Iceberg Comment: SPIC is China’s first energy state-owned enterprise to reveal carbon emission peak target, which is 7 years ahead of the national carbon peak pledge.
Wind
Shanghai Electric ‘probe Gamesa sale’ ?
Two giant Asian companies have sounded out Siemens Gamesa over the possible sale of assets connected to the Gamesa business, according to Spanish newspaper Expansión.
Shanghai Electric of China and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi have approached the European turbine manufacturer to enquire about a sell-off of part or all of Gamesa, which merged with Siemens in 2017.
Energy Iceberg Comment: most industry sources tend to believe the acquisition will be very unlikely.
18.6GW Offshore Wind Project Will Enter Zero-Subsidy Stage
The general manager of the offshore business unit of Goldwind, Zhai Endi, shared the latest industry analysis at the recent 2020 China Offshore Wind Power Engineering Technology Conference:
- The 13th Five-Year Plan (FYP) projected a 10.05 GW of offshore wind units under construction by 2020. As of Sep. 2020, 7.5 GW of wind power had connected to the grid.
- The cumulative installed capacity of OW could achieve 20 GW by 2021.
- The total planned capacity of offshore wind–according to each provincial 13th FYPs– are 206.14 GW, of which 186.14 GW would be subsidy-free units.
DATA: 21 Wind Turbine OEMs’ 2020 New Turbine Statistics
China Wind News last week summarized the new wind turbine products unleashed by 21 Chinese OEMs this year (data updated to Dec 5 2020).
Energy Iceberg: Compared with new product launches in 2019, there are fewer new OW prototypes above 8MW in 2020. Mingyang has launched an 11MW model, which is the only update for the double-digit machine. This is likely due to the key priority of OEMs this year, which is to ensure the timely supply of existing contracts. Besides, the 8-11MW turbine has yet to achieve major commercial success in the Chinese market.
Solar
Deputy chairman of China Photovoltaic Industry Association, WANG Bohuo, last week, discussed the development of the Chinese PV industry in the past 13th FYP while providing a future perspective of the coming 14th FYP from 2021 to 2025 at a conference. Five key messages as take-away:
- 2020 Additional Capacity: China’s incremental installed capacity of photovoltaic power in 2020 would reach 35 GW. China remains the world’s largest new PV installer for the eighth consecutive year.
- 2020 Cumulative Capacity: The cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic units in 2020 would reach 240 GW, surpassing wind power to become the third-largest power source in China.
- 2021-2025 Annual Capacity Predictions: on average 70 GW of new PV capacity will be added annually from 2021-2025; a more positive scenario is 90 GW each year.
- PV’s Share in 2025: By 2025, renewable energy will account for 95% of incremental installed capacity, and photovoltaics will account for 60% of this amount.
- PV Manufacturing Capacity Expansion: There are a total of 186 production expansion plans launched by photovoltaic companies from 2019 to 2020, and the market concentration is expected to increase rapidly.
Hydrogen Storage & Fuel Cells
National Fuel Cell Demonstration & Subsidy: First Round of Review Completed
The fuel cell demonstration & subsidy application is still on-going, industry sources suggest. The first round of review (for compliance) has been completed. And the selected applications will go through the next-stage expert review.
Industry experts estimate that about 6-7 city alliances would be finally selected for the first batch of demonstration. City alliances from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanghai, Guangdong, Shandong, and Sichuan-Chongqing are more likely to be the winners.
The announcement of the final result is expected to happen before the Spring Festival.
Inner Mongolia Plans to Construct Large-scale Photovoltaic Power-to-Gas Complex
The provincial government of Inner Mongolia recently issued a hydrogen development policy for the 14th FYP period. According to the policy, the province will:
- During 2020-2023: Promote 3,830+ fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), build 60 hydrogen refuelling stations (including joint construction stations, and reach an annual hydrogen production capacity of 400 million cubic meters.
- During 2024-2025: Promote 10,000 FCVs and build 90 hydrogen refuelling stations (including joint construction stations). Start the pilot application of fuel cell distributed power stations. Develop and construct 3-6 demo projects for hydrogen production from the electrolysis of renewable energy, and 1-2 large-scale hydrogen storage demo projects.
- Hydrogen production: Prioritize the development of industrial by-product hydrogen production, and encourage the development of photovoltaic power stations, wind power bases, and power-to-gas projects. Moderately develop the coal-to-hydrogen projects in areas where coal and water resources are sufficient–CCUS is encouraged for these projects.
China’s First Wind Power-to-Gas Project Approached Finishing Line
The onshore wind-to-hydrogen project in Guyuan County of Hebei Province is soon to complete and recently kick off testing before the final commercial commissioning.
The hydrogen project started in 2015 with investments totalling ¥2.03b from Hebei Construction & Investment Group. It includes:
- An onshore wind farm with a power generation capacity of 200 MW, which was connected to the grid in Sep 2016.
- An electrolysis-based hydrogen production system of 10MW capacity
This project is the first industrial application of wind power-to-gas in China.
Battery & Storage
Gansu Plans Revamped the 50MW Molten Salt Parabolic CSP Demo Project
The planning seminar of the Wind-Solar-Thermal-Storage Integration Demo Base in Aksay 50MW Molten Salt Parabolic Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project was recently held in Lanzhou City of Gansu Province.
Meanwhile, the Aksay 50MW Molten Salt Parabolic CSP Project has officially resumed construction after two years’ suspension.
