page_title: Wind power in China
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Wind power in China / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Wind tower elements being prepared for installation at the staging plant in Liu'ao
context_page_description: China is the world leader in wind power generation, with the largest installed capacity of any nation and continued rapid growth in new wind facilities.
  With its large land mass and long coastline, China has exceptional wind power resources: it is estimated China has about 2,380 gigawatts of exploitable capacity on land and 200 GW on the sea.
  In 2016, China added 19.3 GW of wind power generation capacity to reach a total capacity of 149 GW, and generated 241 TWh of electricity, representing 4% of total national electricity consumption.
  Both China's installed capacity and new capacity in 2015 are the largest in the world by a wide margin, with the next largest market, the United States, adding 8.6 GW in 2015 and having an installed capacity of 74.4 GW.
  Wind power in the United States has however a much higher capacity factor.
  China is forecast to have 250 GW of wind capacity by 2020 as part of the government's pledge to produce 15 percent of all electricity from renewable resources by that year.
  The Chinese government has set out a road map for wind power up to 2050.
  Wind power capacity goals are to reach 400 GW by 2030 and 1,000 GW by 2050.
context_section_description: In 2005, the standing committee of the National People's Congress passed a law that requires Chinese power grid enterprises to purchase all the electricity produced by the renewable energy sector.
  Chinese developers unveiled the world's first permanent Maglev wind turbine at the Wind Power Asia Exhibition 2006 held in Beijing. 
  The Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology company invested CN¥400 million in building the base for the maglev wind turbine generators, in which construction began in November 2007. 
  Zhongke Hengyuan expects a yearly revenue of CN¥1.6 billion from the generators.
  In 2006 the Shanghai Power Company purchased 64.485 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of green energy (primarily from wind farms), yet the amount of renewable energy which was subscribed by customers from Shanghai Power Company was only 23% of that total. In 2006 there were just 6,482 households in Shanghai that subscribed to renewable energy in part because the cost of wind power is 0.53 Yuan/kWh higher than power produced from coal plants; in 2007 total output of wind farms in Shanghai will total 100 GWh, which is sufficient to power 120,000 households. 
  Though there were 22 entities that purchased renewable energy in Shanghai, though with the exception of 1/3 of that total being state owned enterprises, the remainder was foreign invested enterprises. Shanghai's city government did not purchase any renewable energy. Of the top ten power customers in Shanghai, only Bao Steel purchased renewable energy; in 2006 Bao Steel entered into an agreement to purchase 1.2 GWh over three years.
  By the end of 2008, at least 15 Chinese companies were commercially producing wind turbines and several dozen more were producing components. 
  Turbine sizes of 1.5 MW to 3 MW became common. 
  Leading wind power companies in China were Goldwind, Dongfang Electric, and Sinovel along with most major foreign wind turbine manufacturers. 
  China also increased production of small-scale wind turbines to about 80,000 turbines in 2008. 
  Through all these developments, the Chinese wind industry appeared unaffected by the global financial crisis, according to industry observers.
  China became the largest wind energy provider worldwide in 2010, with the installed wind power capacity reaching 41.8 GW at the end of the year. However, about a quarter of this capacity was not connected to the grid.
  In 2011, China put forth a plan to have 100 GW of grid-connected wind power capacity by the end of 2015 and to generate 190 terawatt-hours of wind power annually. 
  This target was reached in 2014, making China the first country in the world to reach 100 GW of installed wind capacity. 
  As of 2014, Goldwind remains the largest competitor in the Chinese wind energy market, with a 19% share of new installations. 
  It is followed by Guodian United Power Technology Company (a subsidiary of China Guodian Corporation) at 11%, and Mingyang Wind Power at 9%.
caption: Wind turbine tower elements in an assembly facility in Liu'ao, Zhangpu County, Fujian
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-ZS19", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.1", "Image DateTime": "2015:11:01 13:38:33", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "716", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "11764", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5107", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1000", "EXIF FNumber": "51/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:11:01 13:38:33", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:11:01 13:38:33", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "301/64", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "71/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2560", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1920", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "10910", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "79", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}