In the first half of 2023, China's wind power construction developed rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of 20% in cumulative power generation. A series of original and breakthrough achievements emerged, accelerating the formation of a globally leading wind power industry system while providing more green momentum for China's economic development.

Since 2023, from the blue sea to the snowy plateau to rural areas, large wind turbines have emerged and rotated in the wind, achieving new breakthroughs one by one. In the waters of Fujian, the world's largest wind turbine, a 16 megawatt wind turbine, has been successfully connected to the grid for power generation; In the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, the wind turbine with the highest altitude in the world overcame the difficulty of thin plateau air and began to transmit electricity; In the Central Plains, scattered wind turbines stand tall in the fields, providing clean electricity for beautiful rural areas.

In the first half of 2023, more than 40% of the world's newly installed wind power came from China. Currently, the total installed capacity of wind power in China has reached 389 million kilowatts, and these large windmills scattered throughout the country can generate over 2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per day of rotation.

Nine new energy bases have been built successively, and wind power installation has gradually developed from the "three north" regions to the central and southeast regions, spreading throughout the country. Currently, the installed scale of wind power has increased by five times compared to 2012, and the power generation has increased by 6.7 percentage points. The cost of electricity generated by onshore wind power is already comparable to traditional fossil fuels, providing strong support for China's green energy transformation.

Over the past decade, the pace of innovation in the entire wind power industry chain in China has been continuously accelerating, becoming the world's largest wind power equipment manufacturing base, with production accounting for more than two-thirds of the global market and exporting to 49 countries and regions worldwide.

In China's first offshore wind power industrial park, 16 megawatt wind turbines have entered the mass production stage, and the first phase of the world's largest cross-section and longest submarine cable production line has also been successfully put into operation. More than 50 upstream and downstream enterprises in the wind power industry chain have taken 13 MW, 13.6 MW, and 16 MW wind turbines offline in just one year, driving the iterative development of wind power equipment in China.

Nowadays, from the first localization of core component main bearing materials and manufacturing to the breakthrough use of carbon fiber materials in blade main beam structures, the weight has been reduced by 20%. The localization rate of China's large-scale wind turbine has reached over 95%, and the localization rate of key core components such as generators and gearboxes is close to 100%.

China currently has a series of capabilities such as ultra long-distance power transmission, installation of ultra large wind turbines, and intelligent unmanned operation and maintenance, helping wind power accelerate towards more difficult to develop but abundant wind energy resources areas such as plateaus, deserts, and deep seas.

It is expected that wind power generation will double during the 14th Five Year Plan period. In the future, China's windmills will settle down in a wider area, providing a continuous stream of green energy for China's economic development. Editor/Zhao E