China

With rapid development of wind power in China, the following three issues have become barriers for further scale-up: 1) concentration of wind farms in the Three-North... Show More + region, which became significantly underutilized because of a limited capability of local power grids to off-take and consume wind-generated electricity and because of a lack of coordinated development of long-distance transmission lines to deliver electricity to load centers in the South and East regions; 2) increasing subsidies and, thus, a burden on final consumers; and 3) resistance of local authorities to develop new projects because the new value added tax policy reform. How to deal with these issues will have significant impact on the future development of wind in China. This note proposes a methodology to enhance a comprehensive approach by taking both generation and transmission into account in crafting the development plan and formulating the incentive policies, which may be useful in addressing these issues. Show Less -

The development of wind-and solar-generating capacity is growing rapidly around the world as policy makers pursue various energy policy objectives. This paper will describe... Show More + the challenges in integrating wind and solar generation, the lessons learned, and recommended strategies from both operating experience and integration studies. Case studies on the experience with wind and solar integration in China, Germany, and Spain are also included in this paper. The paper is organized as follows. First section summarizes worldwide wind and solar development, the challenges in integrating wind and solar generation, and some of the lessons learned from studies designed to evaluate the impact of higher levels of wind and solar generation and also from the operational experience in some countries with larger amounts of renewable energy. The second section summarizes some of the solutions for incorporating higher levels of wind and solar capacity into short-term system operations. This section also explains basic methodologies to implement system operations studies to understand the impacts of variability in system operation. The third section explains the contribution of variable renewables to long-term supply adequacy-commonly called 'firm' power-and the relationship of this to long-term reserves; it also explores how these issues can be incorporated into long-term planning or adequacy assessments. Overall, the variability of wind power generation adds to the variability on the grid in most time scales, and a key question that wind integration studies must address is whether there is enough existing capability on the grid to manage that increased variability, or whether new sources, such as new generation or increased levels of demand response, must be added to manage that variability. Show Less -

China promulgated the Medium and Long-Term Development Plan for Renewable Energy in 2007, which included targets of 2010 and 2020 for various renewable energy technologies... Show More + including biofuels. The 2010 biofuel targets were met and even surpassed except for non-grain fuel ethanol; however, there is debate on whether and how the country will be able to meet the 2020 biofuels target. This paper provides a resource and technological assessment of biofuel feedstocks, compares biofuel production costs from various feddstocks and technologies, and evaluates policies introduced in the country for the development of biofuels. The paper also presents the projections on the production of biofuels under various policy scenarios. The study shows that China can potentially satisfy its non-grain fuel ethanol target by 2020 from the technology perspective. But it will probably fall far short of this target without additional fiscal incentives as production costs of non-grain feedstock based biofuels are expected to remain relatively high. By contrast, the 2020 target of biodiesel production has a high probability of being achieved because the target itself is relatively small. With additional support policies, it could develop even further. Show Less -

The proposed Jiangxi Wuxikou Integrated Flood Management Project (JWIFMP) in China will be built in the middle reach of the Changjiang River, about 40km upstream of... Show More + Jingdezhen Municipality in Jiangxi Province. In the proposed project components, major environmental and social impacts will be expected from the construction and operation of dam and reservoir, as presented below. Wuxikou reservoir will play a key role in the changes of hydraulic regime for Changjiang River. With the existing cascade development on the river, the impacts on hydraulic regime are only considered significant within the dam and reservoir area, but not for the other downstream sections. The impact of project construction on terrestrial wildlife will be limited to around the dam site. The animals affected are common species in the region, and the impacts are temporary which will disappear with construction completion. The protection of physical cultural resources is another concern during project implementation. The project will flood one county-level cultural relic site (Site of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers’ Congress for Eight Counties in Anhui and Jiangxi province), three ancient ancestral temples of the Ming/Qing Dynasty, one small Christian church, six ancient trees and 4623 villagers’ graves, but none of them is identified as having high cultural heritage values. The expected impacts are considered insignificant with the implementation of pre-defined PCR management plan. To address the above proposed project impacts, the Environmental & Social Management Plan (ESMP) and the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) have identified the appropriate and detailed mitigation measures. Show Less -

United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) worked together with Marsh in assessing the feasibility of a reinsurance facility for large and medium scale wind farms in... Show More + China. Although wind energy insurance is broadly available with domestic market in China, the domestic insurance industry has limited underwriting experience and expertise in respect of revenue stream protection during construction and operational phases, which inhibits developer’s access to debt refinancing. Therefore, the objective of the reinsurance facility is to improve investment grade credit rating for wind energy projects and attracting alternative risk capital to support new risk management market structures. The reinsurance facility also aims to attract multi-lateral lenders or guarantors within a public-private partnership framework to minimize the need to extend risk and draw specialist engineering consultancy services to a wind energy financial risk management platform on a portfolio versus project basis. Show Less -