Wind Power, September 4, 2009

Mid-summer, small windmills appeared up and down Sanya’s Chunguang Lu in front of my development, FengXingLong Gardens. Biking under the stilled pin-wheels that powered streetlights, I got to wondering about China’s windo-powered history. China Daily Business section June 3 showed road lamps powered by wind in Zhejiang Province, home of my next teaching experience, so that whetted my appetite for learning more.

China now has the fourth largest wind capacity in the world, after USA, Germany, and Spain. India trails in fifth place. All recognize the advantages of renewable, low water consumption, emission-free wind power. It’s the cheapest form of renewable energy. China boasts a year-on-year 100% growth this past few years. It projects installed capacity of 30,000 megawats (mW) by 2010’s end, up 12,000 mW from this year. Six more power bases are planned by 2020. Then current 2% of of China’s total power generation capacity would increase from next year’s projected 10%.
 
There are problems in this numbers game. Their grid capacity can’t keep pace; some wind power plants can’t connect to the grid effectively. China Longyuan Electiic Power Group Corp, producer of a third of the country’s wind power, has started offshore wind projects. The country’s five major energy companies have started wind power businesses
 
One thing is certain, China will continue to need increasing electricity, whether from thermal, hydropower, or wind. Here (Lin’An, where I moved 9/1 to Hangzhou’s “suburb” town of 150,000, I plug in 5/2009 www.linanwindow.com’s Chinglish take on “Rapidly deviloping industrial economices:…867 rural enterprises, 18 big-medium-sizedenterprises, 6 provincial, 2 municipal groups, and more than 150 ventures…exporting products of the joint venture are over 100 kinds…textile, cloth, wire, electric cable, building material, wine-making industry…Water and electricity facilities have got rapid increasing…71 small waterpower stations…With 40000KW installed capacity and 270 million RMB, the Qingshan palace center is busy in building…”
 
I bicycle over river bridges and near 100,000-ton capacity Second Water Work on the 3 km ride through endless traffic to Babe English Training School. Evenings and weekends until we open for business September 10, I do demonstration lessons with parents anxiously looking on, coaching their children until I have a Chinese Training Assistant interpret my assertive demand that they remain silent. We dutifully turn on/off air conditioning before/after using my rooms.