Wind power is no longer a business option to quietly leave

The wind power industry seems very tight due to several things. One is the “2.24” fan off network accident at Jiuquan Wind Power Base; the second is the brewing of a new wind power standard. The two things do not seem to be related, but the consequences have caused the industry to worry that the wind power industry may face adjustments in the direction.

The “2.24” accident occurred at the Jiuquan wind power base in Gansu Province because of a three-phase short-circuit fault at the 35 kV cable feeder cable head of the first wind farm in Qiaoxi. As a result, nearly 600 wind turbines were disconnected and power was lost to 840,000 kilowatts. The State Electricity Regulatory Commission established an accident investigation team survey and pointed out that the accident was the most serious accident that occurred in China's wind power generation in recent years.

The Electricity Regulatory Commission did not directly explain the cause of the accident. It just listed the safety problems of the Quartet from equipment manufacturers, wind farm construction owners, power grids and technical standards. This is equivalent to playing dozens of large boards, nothing more.

This is not the first wind-breaking accident in China. In 2008 and last year, there were two incidents of wind power off-line in Jilin. However, Gansu Jiuquan Ten Thousand Kilowatts Wind Power Base is one of the “Three Gorges Wind Power Projects” planned by the National Energy Administration. The current installed capacity of the first phase is 5 million kilowatts. Affected by the accident, other projects of the “Three Gorges of Wind Power” temporarily suspended their approval.

According to industry insiders, what is more important is that the accident has once again triggered the industry to re-examine the development model of wind power in China: Is the "large-scale, high-concentration" development model and the "large-capacity, high-voltage, long-distance" transmission model reasonable? Is it economical?

Between 2005 and 2009, China's installed capacity for wind power was rapidly expanded at a rate of 100%. The installed capacity last year ranked first in the world. However, wind power access has always restricted the development of wind power in China. In the future, China will shift from simply purchasing installed capacity to realizing wind power online. According to Shi Pengfei, chairman of the Wind Energy Professional Committee of the China Renewable Energy Association, this year's increase in installed capacity of wind power will certainly slow down.

The demand for downstream capacity expansion was insufficient, and upstream equipment vendors were greatly affected. At the end of March, Huarui Wind Power (73.45, 0.23, 0.31%) (601558.SH), China's largest wind turbine manufacturer, rejected the core electrical components provided by U.S. Superconductors to reduce inventory levels. According to the CICC report, this incident shows that the deterioration of the market environment cannot be overlooked.

Another trend that has caused wind power equipment manufacturers to worry about is the “Technical Regulations on Wind Farm Access to Power Systems” drafted by the China Electric Power Academy under the State Grid Corporation of China. People in the industry have a lot of opinions on this and believe that this standard does not respect the opinions of power generation companies and equipment manufacturers. "It is the grid companies that use the right to speak and formulate rules to set obstacles for the development of wind power."

This more stringent standard requires wind power equipment manufacturers to have technical requirements such as low-voltage ride-through capability, which poses great pressure on domestic wind turbine manufacturers. Most of this technology is in the hands of foreign wind power providers such as GE and Vestas. Domestic leading equipment manufacturers such as Huarui and Goldwind have only started research and development in the past two years. If high voltage traversing is mandatory, this high-tech threshold will eliminate a large number of small and medium sized wind power providers. Harbin Air-Conditioning (12.13,0.12,1.00%)(600202.SH) announced the launch of R&D activities in the wind power sector in 2009 and publicly announced its withdrawal from the wind power industry in February this year. There are also industry sources, "more companies have chosen to quietly leave."