ABSTRACT
Nevertheless, the impressing figures and policies supporting China’s wind energy development have to be considered with caution. China’s rapidly growing economy, its large population and its surging energy demand mean that only 1.2% of China’s electricity came from wind power in 2010 (WWEA, 2011). Wind energy policies issued by the central government in Beijing are sometimes only reluctantly implemented by provincial and local governments and authorities. Recent research by Wang et al. (2010) shows there are major barriers to China’s wind energy development. First, the share of renewable energy in total energy consumption is decreasing, instead of increasing, due to rapid growth of fossil fuel capacity (Wang et al, 2010). Second, the efficiency of wind energy technology tends to be low as often the quality of the technologies is not to the latest standard in China and efficiencies for wind energy technology are generally rather low. Third, many wind farms are not connected to the grid as this requires high costs and logistic resources. There is a lack of adequate transmission lines and supporting infrastructure and a part of the installed wind energy capacity is therefore often wasted (Liao et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2010). The WWEA (2010) reports that in 2010 only 31GW out of the total capacity of 45GW was connected to the grid; this means that 31% of the installed capacity was standing idle.2
