Qin Haiyan on the wind power industry: ushering in a new era of parity and broadening new space for development

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Qin Haiyan (Secretary-General of Wind Energy Professional Committee of China Renewable Energy Society)

This year marks the eleventh year of the Beijing International Wind Energy Conference & Exhibition (CWP). In the past eleven years, CWP has witnessed the rapid development of the wind power industry in China and even the world, and it is our luck to be able to engage in wind power work and catch up with this great era.

The theme of this year's CWP is "Embracing a New Era of Affordability and Broadening New Space for Development". Why usher in the era of affordability? The achievements of global wind power after years of development are inseparable from the support of governments, the most important of which is subsidy policies. Why subsidies? Its core logic is that, initially, wind power is an emerging industry, the technology is immature, and it is difficult to compete directly with traditional energy sources. Without subsidies, the so-called technology lock-in effect will occur, and the wind power industry will never grow and develop. Through subsidies, we can promote technological progress and promote the industry to enter the large-scale development, so as to gradually reduce costs and ultimately achieve the purpose of subsidies. The decades-long trajectory of wind power is a good testament to this.

In recent years, global wind power tenders and quotations have repeatedly reached new lows, and some offshore wind power projects in Europe have even achieved "zero subsidies". It can be said that the wind power industry has grown up, and in the case of removing unreasonable non-technical costs, wind power as a whole has the ability to compete with traditional energy sources such as thermal power. In addition to the continued efforts of wind power projects in individual regions and under specific resource conditions, the wind power industry to achieve power generation parity is a goal that can be achieved at the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan". An industry cannot survive on subsidies forever, and the industry that has been relying on subsidies will never be big or far away!

Many would argue that it is not fair to directly compare the cost of wind power with thermal power, because the full cost of the latter does not include negative externalities such as environmental pollution and health damage. For this problem, the industry should call on the relevant departments to solve it, but we can't always stand on the moral high ground to speak, and now thermal power is also promoting near-zero emissions, so cost is the key. Renewable energy can only be further developed if prices are reduced to the point where they are affordable to the whole of society. Therefore, moving toward parity is a reality that we have to face. Of course, in order to achieve the parity of wind power in China, it is also necessary to eliminate the non-technical costs caused by wind curtailment and various apportionments.

The meaning of the new era is that the development of wind power has entered a critical period of development from alternative energy to mainstream energy, and the main contradiction restricting the development of the wind power industry has also changed, and has changed from a high cost constraint on large-scale application to a traditional power system and mechanism that cannot adapt to the development of a high proportion of renewable energy. To resolve this, we must focus on the reform of the electricity market, break the shackles of the original institutional mechanism, one is to promote the development of the power system from vertical one-way integration to decentralization and grid, mobilize the existing flexible resources in the power system, and second, establish a spot market for electricity and a market-oriented subsidy mechanism represented by green certificates, which are the fundamental problems that must be solved in the next step to accelerate the development of renewable energy. And it's hard to do that, because once someone else's cheese is moved, the opposition is very strong. Previously, a Harvard University study said that wind farms could exacerbate global warming and solar energy is more environmentally friendly. Someone asked me what I thought of this view, and my answer was: they first despise you, then laugh at you, then oppose you, and in the end you win. No one used to oppose wind power, and now more and more people are opposing it, what does this portend? It is a sign that we are about to win.

The so-called broadening of new space for development, one is to vigorously develop decentralized wind power, the second is to accelerate the development of offshore wind power, and the third is to focus on emerging markets around the world, so that more countries and regions can develop wind power and apply wind power. If these three markets cannot develop, there is no hope for the wind power industry. Under the new situation, in order to maintain high-quality, rapid and sustainable development, China's wind power industry must accelerate the shift of development focus to the south of the Middle East, continue to optimize the industrial layout, innovate the development model according to new resources and environmental characteristics, accelerate the development of decentralized wind power; increase the development of overseas and offshore wind power markets, and open up new incremental markets for the healthy development of the industry。

CWP has gone through eleven years, and the scale has been comparable to the international wind energy exhibition in Hamburg, Germany, but the degree of internationalization is not enough, it is more like a large wind power exhibition that meets the Chinese market. Making CWP a truly global event is the direction of our future efforts. What is an international exhibition? One of the most important logics is that we can't just look at the number of foreign companies and foreign guests, and the delegates and exhibitors are not just here to obtain information on the Chinese market and the development of China's wind power. On this platform, all parties should be able to appreciate the global wind power technology frontier, display the most advanced products, and understand the latest developments in the global wind power industry. CWP must not only promote the development of China's wind power industry, but also lead the progress of the global wind energy industry and truly serve the world.

On October 14th, we held the annual "China Wind Energy Charity Long Run" to raise funds for the "Wind Energy People and Children's Palliative Care Activity Center". Although the air quality in Beijing has been very good this year, everyone has almost forgotten about the smog, but unfortunately, on the day of the long-distance race, the smog came unexpectedly. Smog is just late, not absent. To completely eliminate the smog, countries must work together to vigorously develop renewable energy, including offshore wind power, and only by achieving 100% renewable energy on a global scale can we completely solve human energy and environmental problems. From this point of view, all wind energy people still have a long way to go, let us work together to this end.

(This article is based on Qin Haiyan's speech at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Beijing International Wind Energy Conference, reproduced from the "Wind Energy Committee cwea" public number)

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