The Economics of Wind Power in China and Policy Implications

Energies

Zifa Liu²  Wenhua Zhang¹  Changhong Zhao¹  Jiahai Yuan¹ 

[1] School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Chang Ping District, Beijing 102206, China; E-Mails:;School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Chang Ping District, Beijing 102206, China; E-Mail:

关键词: wind power;    feed-in tariff (FIT);    levelized cost of electricity;    China;   

DOI  :  10.3390/en8021529

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

In 2009, the implementation of feed-in tariff (FIT) and attractive public subsidies for onshore wind farms aroused great investment enthusiasm and spurred remarkable development of wind power in China. Meanwhile, rapid learning-by-doing has significantly cut down the cost of wind turbines and the capital cost of wind farms as well. Therefore, it is the right time to examine the appropriateness of the existing FIT policy for wind power in China. In this paper, we employ the analytical framework for levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) to model the generation cost of wind power. Results show that the existing FIT policy is attractive to investors, but serious curtailment and turbine quality issues could make wind power unprofitable. Meanwhile, rapid substantial decreases in the cost of wind power have made it competitive to coal power in 2013, implying that it is possible and necessary to reform the FIT policy for new wind farms. In the future, energy policies for onshore wind power in China could be concentrated on reducing the integration cost, so as to reduce the overall system cost.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.