Shanghai Group Calls for 29 GW of Offshore Wind to Support Grid
Shanghai Group Calls for 29 GW of Offshore Wind to Support Grid
Offshore Wind
China’s central government has approved Shanghai’s plan to build 29 GW of offshore wind generation capacity, part of the city’s strategy to build more energy infrastructure and diversify the electricity mix.
Reports said the plan was devised by the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission, with a goal to have offshore wind generate as much as 100 TWh of renewable power each year.
Chinese media on July 22 reported that the plan was publicly unveiled at a recent meeting of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Reports said the initiative would promote “the transformation of energy structure and Shanghai’s implementation of dual-carbon strategy,” which officials said focuses on transforming Shanghai’s energy mix structure to achieve carbon neutrality.
Officials said the meeting was part of a broader series of initiatives by the CPPCC to move Shanghai toward better alignment with China’s national climate targets.
Integrating Renewable Energy
The Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission has said the city will integrate renewable energy resources—including offshore wind—with electricity from existing power generation systems across the regional grid. Officials said a key project under China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, a series of social and economic development initiatives issued by the Chinese Communist Party since 1953, would be sending electricity from the Kubuqi Desert in Mongolia to Shanghai. That project is expected to provide the city with more than 40 TWh of power annually, with at least half that total coming from renewable energy resources.
The Reform Commission has said that Shanghai also will focus on an “establish first, then reform” development of coal-fired power plants. The China Energy News Agency has said coal-fired generation is needed to support a stable supply of electricity until long-term energy storage becomes more widely available.
China is the world leader in operating offshore wind generation capacity, and the country dominates global manufacturing of wind turbines. Global Energy Monitor said the country had 31.4 GW installed at the end of 2022. The Global Wind Energy Council said China added another 6.3 GW of offshore wind capacity in 2023.
—Darrell Proctor is senior associate editor for POWER ( @POWERmagazine).
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.