SUN BENEFITS: A 10-megawatt solar power project in Dunhuang, Jiuquan, built by the State Development and Investment Corp. is in operation. With abundant solar energy resources, Dunhuang is expending a great deal of effort to develop its solar energy industry (WANG XIANG)

"Transporting a single wind power blade from Lianyungang to Jiuquan will cost 100,000 yuan ($14,749), but now the cost is only 20,000 yuan ($2,949) because it is produced here," Yu Chengzhai, an official with the government of the Suzhou District of Jiuquan, told Beijing Review.

According to the Information Office of the Jiuquan Municipal Government, the wind power equipment manufactured at the park will also be sold to wind power bases in Hami of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, western Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and western Qinghai Province—all with a distance not exceeding 600 km from the park.

Official figures showed that in 2009, sales revenues generated by wind power equipment manufacturers in the city totaled 6.4 billion yuan ($943.95 million) and that by May 12, 2010, the industry had a completed output value of 4.35 billion yuan ($641.59 million). It is expected that in 2010 the output value of the city's wind power equipment manufacturing industry will surpass 20 billion yuan ($2.95 billion).

Solar power

Dunhuang, a county-level city in Jiuquan famous for its Mogao Grottoes, holds abundant solar energy resources. According to official figures, the annual duration of sunshine here reaches 3,246.7 hours and the city's annual total radiation volume is 6,882.57 megajoules per square meter, making the city one of the areas nationwide with the richest solar energy resources.

Moreover, Dunhuang also has an expansive area of Gobi desert that can be used for solar energy generation. According to the Information Office of the Dunhuang Municipal Government, about 5,000 square km of Gobi desert in the city can be used for solar energy development, with a potential installed capacity of 1.36 trillion kw and a projected annual electricity output of more than 200 billion kwh.

The State Development and Investment Corp. (SDIC) and China Guangdong New Energy Development Co. (CGNEDC) have teamed up to construct two 10-megawatt solar photovoltaic power generation plants under a pilot project to harness Dunhuang's ample solar power resources. The two plants were put into operation on July 30 this year.

According to figures from the Information Office of Dunhuang, the solar power plant of CGNEDC, whose construction began in September 2009, has already generated 1.07 gwh of electricity. The SDIC project, which started construction in October 2009, has generated 1.48 gwh of electricity.

Ren Tao, General Manager of SDIC Dunhuang Solar Power Co., said that the actual power generation in the first quarter of 2010 was better than what had been predicted.

General managers of the two companies say both of the plants are using photovoltaic panels produced by Yingli Group, a leading photovoltaic equipment manufacturer in China and in the world and a sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Transmitting out

To meet the demand of constructing a new energy base in Jiuquan, the NDRC approved the planning made by the State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) on the supporting grids of the Jiuquan wind power base. According to the plan, the main grid, hitting 750 kilovolts, will connect with the northwest grid via Lanzhou and Xi'an, and the supporting grid, being 300 kv, will connect with various counties, cities and wind power plants in Jiuquan.

The first phase of the 750-kv ultra-high-voltage transmission and transfer project, to be completed and put into operation in September 2010, should be able to transmit 5 gw of electricity, according to the Information Office of the Jiuquan Municipal Government. In the meantime, SGCC is planning to build, by 2015, another 750-kv ultra-high-voltage line and a ±800 kv spot-to-spot direct current transmission line that can transmit electricity to east China.

Some challenges

Wang Ningbo, Director of the Wind Power Technology Center of Gansu Electric Power Corp., thinks that new energy development in Jiuquan faces some challenges, first of which is the transmission of electricity.

By the end of 2010, the total wind power installed capacity in Jiuquan will reach 5.36 gw, while the 750-kv ultra-high-voltage transmission and transfer line can only transmit 5 gw. This does not take into account the 2 megawatts of solar power generated in Dunhuang and other electricity generated by the city's hydro and thermal power plants.

Jiuquan is planning to increase its total installed capacity to 12.71 gw by 2015 and 20 gw by 2020. Wang thinks that due to various uncertain factors, even with the world's most advanced ±800 kv spot-to-spot direct current transmission line, further research must be done on whether all the electricity generated by 2015 and beyond can be effectively transmitted. It is also likely that the wind power base in Jiuquan will still face a transmission bottleneck.

Another challenge is the market. The combined installed capacity of wind power in Jiuquan will reach 5.36 gw this year. But the expected maximum load of electricity consumption in the whole Gansu Province this year is only 9.8 gw, Wang noted. In his opinion, it is almost impossible for the province, with a maximum electricity consumption of 9.8 gw, to digest the 5.36 gw of wind power alone.

Wang thinks that even if the whole province's electricity consumption increases by an average annual rate of 10 percent, it is still unlikely for the Gansu grid, or even the country's northwest grid, to digest the electricity generated by the wind power base in Jiuquan. Therefore, the consumption of the wind power generated by Jiuquan after 2015 must rely on the market of the whole country.

But a fact that should not be ignored is that many other provinces and autonomous regions of the country are developing their own new energy industries. For example, Gansu's neighbors—Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai—are all developing wind power. Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Liaoning and some other provinces are developing nuclear power.

Hence, in the future Jiuquan may face a market bottleneck when establishing a new energy base, Wang concluded.