Profits Decline For China’s Wind Farms

Wind farms in China are facing financial problems this year as they struggle to gain a profit from an unforgiving economy. Problems with wind energy supply and a lack of a solid power infrastructure have led to a decline in the marketability of wind energy.

The State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC), a branch of the Chinese government which regulates China’s power division, posted a report on their website. The report stated that wind farms are struggling to harness enough wind energy to utilise their plants for the length of time that was previously estimated by research studies.

Furthermore the China Wind Energy Association has reported that 20% of the country’s fully operational wind facilities did not actually produce any electricity because they had not yet been connected to China’s power grid.

The SERC report also claims that wind farms are averaging a low profit margin due to low tariffs required to be paid by grid operators to wind farmers. To remediate the situation, the government is planning on standardising wind tariffs by region so that they would be comparable to the estimated output of electricity for the area.

Although China’s output of wind energy is 1.1 percent per year, only 0.3 percent of that energy is being utilised as electricity.  China will have to improve upon their power grid increasingly or they will not reach their goal of having 8% of their electricity provided for via wind energy by 2020.