The problem of reducing carbon emissions from China’s coastal areas could be solved by using offshore wind power. Despite their small land area, China’s coastal provinces are home to 76% of the population. In addition, they are accountable for 70% of all CO2 emissions and 72 percent of the nation’s total power consumption. Changing the beachfront regions from petroleum derivatives is one of China’s central difficulties for accomplishing carbon nonpartisanship by 2060, and seaward wind power might hold the key.
New exploration distributed in Nature Correspondences fosters a base-up model to test the capacities of the network to oblige sustainable power fluctuation and to plan the ideal money growth strategies for seaward wind influence.
One of the first to examine opportunities for province-by-province grid integration of renewables at elevated levels of offshore investment is the new paper from the Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy, and Environment, a U.S.-China collaborative research program based at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and collaborators at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in China.
“The findings suggest that at least 1,000 GW of offshore wind capacity may already be available at a levelized cost lower than that of nuclear units in China. We discovered that offshore wind investment levels might exceed the present government objective.”
Michael McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies at SEAS and chair of the Harvard-China Project.
China’s coastal breeze venture, representing more than 80% of public and 30% of worldwide breeze responsibilities, has both essentially less result in winter and restricted framework adaptability. Financial, geographical, and safety constraints also apply to other zero-carbon energy sources like solar and nuclear power. On the other hand, offshore wind can be a more effective source of renewable energy.
Transmission network expansion capacity variation between S1 (a prior roadmap study’s limited offshore wind level) and S3 (free offshore wind optimization) Gray lines show all of the inter-provincial transmission lines that are currently in use. The transmission increment is depicted by red lines, while the transmission decrease is depicted by green lines. The right table shows the provincial allocation of offshore wind investment under S3. Credit: Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37536-3.
“The results indicate that at least 1,000 GW of offshore wind capacity could already be available at a levelized cost below that for nuclear units in China,” says Michael McElroy, chair of the Harvard-China Project and Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies at SEAS. We found that seaward wind speculation levels could be over two times the ebb and flow government target.”
A high-resolution assessment model of China’s provinces was developed by the researchers, who were also led by Prof. Xinyu Chen of HUST, an alumnus of the Harvard-China Project. Their goal was to develop the most effective strategy for the deployment of offshore wind. The model joins a refined examination of seaward wind assets and financial matters, takes into account the micro-location of wind farms in conjunction with delivery system optimization, and determines the most effective plans for provincial investments in offshore installations, transmissions, and storage by simulating hourly power system demands.
By 2030, the modeled system will double offshore wind investment. Additionally, it shifts some of the investment away from Guangdong and toward provinces like Jiangsu and Zhejiang, improving the existing provincial deployment plans for offshore wind. Consequently, the plan could increase national renewable energy penetration from 31.5 percent to 40 percent at a lower cost than anticipated in the current plan. China’s offshore wind capacity could reach 1500 GW by 2050.
Xinyang Guo, a visiting fellow with the Harvard-China Project, Ph.D. candidate at HUST, and first author of the paper, says, “China has abundant wind resources and favorable sea depth conditions to develop offshore wind power.” “The arrangement of seaward wind ranches in China couldn’t give the biggest market to the worldwide breeze industry in the impending 10 years, yet it could offer additionally a significant structure block for China to change away from petroleum derivative-based energy frameworks.”
More information: Xinyang Guo et al, Grid integration feasibility and investment planning of offshore wind power under carbon-neutral transition in China, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37536-3
