1. Introduction
During the past decade of the 2010s, China has experienced rapid economic development, but also encountered environmental and energy problems. As part of the long-term energy strategy direction of China, it is important to develop clean renewable energy to solve the environmental problems such as haze and greenhouse gas emissions and transform the current energy structure, dominated for a long time by fossil energy. To accomplish the goal of “carbon dioxide emission peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060”, China should adopt more effective renewable energy development policies. As a typical primary energy and renewable energy source, China’s wind energy resources are widely distributed. Among them, the southeast coast and nearby islands, as well as the North (northeast, North and northwest) are regions rich in wind energy resources. According to the situation of wind energy resources and construction, China’s onshore wind energy resources are divided into four types, as shown in
Figure 1. In addition, wind power is green, zero carbon emission and renewable, therefore, developing wind power is an important strategy to solve China’s environmental and energy problems.
Compared with traditional fossil energy sources, wind power has some disadvantages, such as high construction cost, immature technology, volatility and intermittency that affect the safe and stable operation of the power grid, high price, and so on. As a result, there are many difficulties in wind power development, such as construction, grid-connection, transmission, accommodation and so on. Energy policy plays an important role in reducing the impact of global warming and energy supply crisis [
1]. It is worth noting that energy policies can help increase wind power generation and stimulate the energy industry. To make full use of wind power’s advantages of green, zero carbon emission, and sustainability, policy is important driving factor to promote the development of wind power [
2]. In the U.S., the number of state policies on renewable energy has been increasing, providing states with multiple options to encourage renewable energy power generation [
3]. An empirical test using the panel data set of 50 states in the U.S. from 1990 to 2011 proved that the national and state-level policies are effective in encouraging wind energy development [
4]. In recent years, European Renewable Energy (RES) deployment has made strong progress, and its growth is mainly driven by effective policies. The onshore wind power market in some states of Spain, Germany, Portugal, Denmark and Ireland has reached a state of advanced deployment [
5]. After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear accident, the Japanese government stated that the potential of onshore and offshore wind energy were greater than other renewable energy sources, and provided a whole host of policy measures to reduce risks and non-determinacy, and to promote business cost reduction through efficiency and innovation [
6]. Meanwhile, the Chinese government has issued a number of policies to promote the growth of wind power so as to transform energy structure and deal with environmental problems. Based on the 31 Chinese provinces’ data from 2004 to 2015, Shen and Lyu [
7] analyzed the relationship between the factors affecting the growth of wind power, including the government supervision standard and vested interest groups, and found that the authorization of the approval authority brought about the development of regional wind power installed capacity. Li et al. [
8] discussed 134 onshore wind power policies issued in China from 2005 to 2015, evaluating the policies from three perspectives of overall planning, supporting policies and policy implementation by using a fitting method and empirical analysis, so as to provide support for the formulation of wind power policies in the future. According to the cumulative wind power installed capacity and the annual new wind power installed capacity from 2005 to 2016, Zhang et al. [
9] evaluated the effectiveness of China’s wind FIT policies, and figured out that the regional power grid can effectively improve the wind power installed capacity. With the promotion of wind power policies in the 2010s, China’s wind power industry has made considerable progress. The installed capacity of onshore wind power in China accounted for 37% of the total wind power capacity in 2019 [
10]. As shown in
Figure 2, the new installed capacity of global onshore wind power is 54.2 GW in 2019, China accounting for 45%; the cumulative installed capacity of global onshore wind power is 621 GW, China accounting for 36% [
10]. China’s new installed capacity and cumulative capacity of wind power rank first in the world. It shows that China is continuing to improve policies to promote the stable development of wind power.
China has constructed a relatively comprehensive wind power policy system including legislation, administration, and market transaction, which has contributed to the rapid growth of wind power in the 2010s [
11]. However, there are still many issues, such as wind curtailment, power system operation with grid-connection wind power and high price of wind power [
12]. In addition, the scale of China’s wind power generation has been expanding in recent years, and the problem of wind power subsidies has become increasingly prominent [
13]. The lack of new energy subsidies has become a serious shackle for the healthy development of the industry, and the wind power is in urgent need of marketization [
14]. To solve the problems that restrict the development of wind power, optimize the energy structure and build a safe, clean, low carbon and efficient modern energy system, the Chinese government should continue to improve policies to guide the benign development of wind power [
15]. In recent years, many scholars have conducted fruitful research on renewable energy sources (RES) in China, such as RES development, policies, etc [
12]. However, along with China’s energy revolution and power system reform, the development of wind power encounters new opportunities and problems, such as opportunities of electricity transaction market, renewable portfolio standard, and problems of grid-connection at the same price with thermal power and wind power accommodation [
16]. Therefore, by analysing Chinese wind power policies in 2010–2019, this paper aims to: (1) systematically analyze Chinese wind power policy system as well as the direction of policy guidance; (2) evaluate the implementation effect of wind power policies and identify wind power development problems; (3) introduce recommendations to improve the wind power policy system in China.
The paper is structured as follows:
Section 2 presents wind power policies in China mainly issued in 2010–2019; in
Section 3, the effect of China’s wind power policies is evaluated; in
Section 4, wind power development problems are extracted; in
Section 5, policy recommendations on wind power development are proposed;
Section 6 presents our conclusions. In addition, compared with China’s onshore wind power, the installed capacity of offshore wind power is still small, accounting for only 2.8% of the total installed capacity of wind power in 2019. Therefore, the policy study mainly focuses on the onshore wind power in this paper. The abbreviations of departments as well as organizations mainly used in this paper are shown in
Table 1.
3. Implementation Effect of Wind Power Policies
Based on the
Renewable Energy Law, China has formed a relatively comprehensive wind power policy system, including development planning, administrative management, and market transaction. Driven by wind power policies, there are remarkable effects on the development of Chinese wind power in construction, generation, electricity market transaction, accommodation and environment in 2010s [
72].
3.1. Effect on Wind Power Construction
In 2010–2019, China’s wind power construction was experiencing a period of fast development, and the installed capacity has been top of the world since 2012. As shown in
Figure 6 [
28], the cumulative installed capacity of wind power in China has increased by more than 10% annually in 2010–2019, the growth rate showing a decreasing trend with the growing base. The reasons for different growth rates are that: the high growth rate from 2010 to 2015 is mainly due to the low base of wind power installed capacity, so the rate is higher. The rate of 2016–2019 has decreased, mainly because the overall base is large and the rate is low; moreover, with the swift growth of wind power installed capacity in previous years, the speed of installed capacity has slowed down. The peak growth rate is mainly related to two factors in 2015. One factor is the 12th Five-Year Plan. 2015 is the year when the 12th Five-Year Plan is completed. In order to achieve the planned goals, the growth rate was relatively faster. The second factor is that in 2014, in the onshore wind power price adjustment plan, which lowered the wind power feed-in tariff. Therefore, many wind power industries accelerated their wind power construction before the new price was implemented, resulting in a higher growth rate in 2015. As shown in
Figure 7, in spite of fluctuation of annual investment of Chinese wind power in 2010–2019, it still exceeded 60 billion CNY each year [
73].
In summary, under the guidance of wind power policies, the construction scale of wind power in China is increasing in 2010–2019, and has achieved the goal of cumulative installed capacity exceeding 200 GW, a year early. In the future, China still need improve policies to guide the steady development of wind power construction.
3.2. Effect on Wind Power Generation
In 2019, Chinese wind power generation reached 405.7 TWh, accounting for 5.5% of the gross power generation. As shown in
Figure 8, China’s annual output of wind power, as calculated by the NEA, has shown a rapid growth trend in 2010–2019, and the proportion of the total power generation has increased year after year. It shows that the scale of wind power utilization in China is larger and larger, and that the importance of wind power in power system is increasing.
In conclusion, with the guidance of wind power policies, the Chinese wind power generation scale has begun to take effect, and has achieved the goal that annual wind power generation reaches 390 TWh in 2020 and accounts for more than 5% of the gross power generation, a year early. In future, China still needs to perfect generation policies of wind power to direct the green and clean development of Chinese power system.
3.3. Effect on Wind Power’s Participation in Electricity Market Transaction
In 2018, the average on-grid price of Chinese wind power was 529.01 CNY/MWh, down 3.43% year on year. In a typical region, the on-grid price of wind power in West Mongolia of China reached the lowest price in the country in 2018, at 252.46 CNY/MWh. As shown in
Figure 9, from 2013 to 2018, the average on-grid price of Chinese wind power showed a downward trend year by year, and the on-grid price for wind power and thermal power have gradually narrowed [
34,
35].
With the gradual implementation of various national measures to promote electricity market-oriented trading, the average on-grid power price of wind turbines has gradually approached the on-grid coal price, and the conditions for participating in the market have gradually become available from the cost. China still needs to introduce further policies to guide the wind power to go online at parity, so that the wind power speed can return to the nature of power and enter a new era of power marketization.
3.4. Effect on Wind Power Accommodation
In 2019, the average utilization hours of Chinese wind power were 2082. As shown in
Figure 10 [
28], in 2010–2019, the average annual utilization hours of Chinese wind power were 1937, showing a stable trend. The accommodation of wind power is growing in consideration of the increasing installed capacity of wind power.
In summary, under the guidance of wind power policies, the effect of wind power accommodation in China is significant, and the annual utilization hours were relatively stable in 2010–2019. However, there is still space for making better. Because of problems such as wind power curtailment, more attention should be paid to wind power accommodation, and hence China needs to formulate and improve corresponding policies to increase utilization level of wind power.
3.5. Effects on Environment
Compared to coal-fired power, of which emissions, such as CO
2, SO
2, NO
x, and dust, directly affect the climate and environment, wind power has the advantages of clean and zero emission, which can effectively alleviate greenhouse gas emission, haze and other environmental pollution problems in China [
74]. Under the guidance of wind power policies in 2010s, the proportion of wind power in power system is gradually increasing in China, and its environmental effect is increasingly significant. According to indicators of coal-fired power plants, such as gross coal consumption rate, CO
2 emission coefficient, etc [
75], the environmental benefits of CO
2 emission reduction contributed by wind power in 2010–2019 are shown in
Figure 11. In 2010–2019, the cumulative CO
2 emission reduction is 1676 Mt [
76].
To sum up, driven by wind power policies, environmental benefits contributed by wind power generation are significant in 2010–2019, showing that it’s an important way to control the change of climate and environment by developing Chinese wind power. To accomplish the goal of peak emission of CO
2 by 2030 [
77], China needs to further improve the corresponding wind power policies to improve the capacity of wind power accommodation and reflect its green commercial value, thus releasing its environmental effects.
3.6. Effects of Typical Policies
Chinese wind power policies have effectively promoted wind power development, especially in the factors such as installed capacity growth rate, utilization hours and wind curtailment rate. In this section, wind power installed capacity growth rate, utilization hours and wind curtailment rate of 30 provincial regions in China are selected as indicators to analyze the effects of typical policies. Based on the two-pair sample T-test method, the differences before and after the implementation of development planning policy, guaranteed purchase policy, and supervision policy are analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the policies. Among them, the 13th Five-Year Plan of Wind Power Development [
25], Regulatory Measures for the Acquisition of Renewable Energy Power Generation [
78], Notice to Promote the Sustainable and Healthy Development of the Wind Power Industry [
57] are selected as typical policies for planning policy, guaranteed purchase policy, and supervision policy respectively.
- (1)
The planning policy hypotheses:
Hypotheses 1 (H1). μ1 = μ2 (Planning policy has no significant impact on the increased wind power installed capacity).
Hypotheses 2 (H2). μ1 ≠ μ2 (Planning policy has significant impact on the increased wind power installed capacity).
- (2)
The grid-connected consumption policy hypotheses:
Hypotheses 1 (H1). μ1 = μ2 (Guaranteed purchase policy has no significant impact on the wind power utilization hours).
Hypotheses 2 (H2). μ1 ≠ μ2 (Guaranteed purchase policy has significant impact on the wind power utilization hours).
- (3)
The supervision policy hypotheses:
Hypotheses 1 (H1). μ1 = μ2 (Supervision policy has no significant impact on the wind abandonment rate).
Hypotheses 2 (H2). μ1 ≠ μ2 (Supervision policy has significant impact on the wind abandonment rate).
Table 8 shows the symbols and descriptions of two-pair sample
t test.
Table 9 shows the data of installed capacity growth rate, utilization hours and wind curtailment rate before and after the implementation of the policy. According to the 95% confidence level, the results of the two-pair sample
t test are shown in
Figure 12.
The mean value of the new installed capacity of wind power before and after the implementation of planning policy is 683.52 and 751.46 respectively, and the mean value of the t test is −67.94. The p value of the t test is 0.634, which is greater than 0.05. The H0 hypothesis is accepted, which means that the planning policy has no significant impact on the increased wind power installed capacity. The reason is that the 13th Five-Year Plan of Wind Power Development was based on ensuring the appropriate increased scale, centered at the improvement of wind power quality, and required the total target to increase steadily. Therefore, the impact of the policy on the new installed capacity of wind power is not significant.
The mean value of the wind power utilization hours before and after the implementation of guaranteed purchase policy is 1897.33 and 2033.81 respectively, and the mean value of t test is −136.478. The p value of the t test is 0.001, which is less than 0.05. The H0 hypothesis is rejected, which means that the guaranteed purchase policy has significant impact on the wind power utilization hours. The Regulatory Measures for the Acquisition of Renewable Energy Power Generation emphasize the importance of the full guaranteed purchase system in renewable energy power generation. It is essential to deeply tap the potential of the system to absorb wind power, and actively develop wind power consumption methods such as wind power heating. Therefore, the impact of the policy on the wind power utilization hours is significant.
The mean value of the wind abandonment rate before and after the implementation of supervision policy is 4.94 and 3.00 respectively, and the mean value of t test is 1.94. The p value of the t test is 0.012, which is less than 0.05. The H0 hypothesis is rejected, which means that supervision policy has significant impact on the wind abandonment rate. The Notice to Promote the Sustainable and Healthy Development of the Wind Power Industry established by the NEA takes wind abandonment rate as an indicator to form early warning results that guide wind power development and investment. Therefore, supervision policy has significant impact on the wind abandonment rate.
5. Policy Recommendations
Facing the 14th Five-Year Plan, renewable energy will usher in an era of high proportion development. Wind power has become a major trend of power development in the world [
83], and the annual new scale ranks first in the world, which injects new vitality into China’s energy transformation. To solve the problems of wind power such as accommodation difficulty, inadequate financial subsidies, imperfect market systems, and so on, China should introduce corresponding policies to guide the orderly development of wind power in future. Accordingly, some policy recommendations are proposed in this section, mainly from five aspects, namely, wind power transmission, nearby accommodation, RPS implementation, carbon transaction market construction and auxiliary service market construction.
5.1. Policy Recommendation on Wind Power Transmission
There are some problems in the system of renewable energy participating in electricity market transaction that the power transmission capacity of governments and regions does not match the market demand. Chinese onshore wind power resources are mainly concentrated in Three North Area, where the power supply exceeds the demand, hence a large amount of wind power must be sent out. Therefore, China should improve the construction policies and supervision and evaluation mechanism of wind power transmission channel, so as to make full use of UHV power grid and other transmission channels to transmit wind energy to areas with high load demand. In addition, the coordination mechanism between inter-provincial power trading platforms should be studied and improved, which can ensure the reasonable connection of wind power in provincial market transactions. Meanwhile, policies should be improved to encourage more flexible methods for wind power transmission, such as wind power transmission combined with thermal power. The methods are suitable for features of Chinese power system in which the distribution of energy source and load is separate, and wind farms and thermal power plants are often adjacent.
5.2. Policy Recommendations on Nearby Accommodation
To realize the large-scale accommodation of wind power, China should further perfect the policy of encouraging the nearby accommodation of wind power. On the one hand, it is recommended that the local government should introduce more preferential policies for industrial development to enhance local load capacity and thus utilize more wind power. E.g., the policy of taxation reduction should be introduced to increase more industrial and commercial loads, and the policy of time of use (TOU) pricing should be introduced to guide users to utilize more wind power by shifting loads. On the other hand, it is recommended to innovate the local wind power utilization ways. E.g., the preferential policy should be introduced to promote the utilization of wind power heating, and enterprises should be encouraged to resolve the problem of wind power accommodation through energy storage. In addition, it should encourage the direct nearby transaction, improve the transmission and distribution price policy to support the direct transaction of wind power, and reduce the cost of intermediate transmission.
5.3. Policy Recommendation on Carbon Transaction Market
Under the goal of “30.60” carbon control, renewable energy power has become a crucial supporting force on the path of carbon emission reduction in China. It can reflect the commercial value of the green and zero carbon emission of wind power by carbon transaction, replacing the current price subsidy system. Firstly, it is recommended to introduce policies to establish carbon transaction market nationwide as soon as possible; secondly, it is recommended to introduce policies to publish the transaction standards and the list of enterprises involved in carbon transaction market; thirdly, it is recommended to introduce policies to define the carbon emission limits by regions; fourthly, it is recommended to introduce policies to improve the detailed rules of transaction entities, transaction varieties, transaction procedures and supervision mechanisms in carbon transaction market.
5.4. Policy Recommendation on Mandatory RPS
Along with the growth of wind power technology, the parity of wind power will be realized progressively in the early stage of the 14th Five-Year Plan. It should improve the green power certificate trading system, make the quota system into laws and regulations, and build a parallel system of voluntary subscription and mandatory restraint transaction. By the implementation of RPS, it can provide generation guarantee for wind power, and deal with the problem of wind power curtailment. On the other hand, by transaction of renewable energy power certificate, it can further realize the commercial value of green and zero carbon emission of wind power, and gradually replace tariff subsidy policy of wind power. Therefore, it is recommended to introduce the policy of mandatory RPS to determine RPS quotas that enterprises must undertake, ensure the implementation of RPS, and promote market transaction of renewable energy certificate.
5.5. Policy Recommendation on Ancillary Service Market
It is an effective approach to realize large-scale wind power accommodation of power system by construction of ancillary service market. Therefore, it is recommended to introduce the policy of ancillary services market to encourage various resources such as thermal power plants, natural gas plants, and energy storage, to provide auxiliary services autonomously, like peak load regulation, frequency modulation, black start, standby of power system, and so on, so as to form a complete auxiliary service revenue compensation mechanism, guarantee the economic benefits of enterprises providing services, and ensure the extensive accommodation of wind power as well as the stable and safe operation of power system.
6. Conclusions
The wind power industry is at the phase of technological innovation and its development has much to do with policies. Chinese wind power policies have productively promoted the growth of the wind power industry. The cumulative installed capacity of onshore wind power has reached 20.4 GW in 2019 and accounted for 36% of global cumulative installed capacity of onshore wind power, ranking the first in the world for a long time. However, with the rapid growth of wind power industry, there are also numerous matters such as difficulties in wind power accommodation, inadequate subsidies, imperfect markets, etc. Consequently, how to introduce corresponding policies to solve the aforementioned problems and thus advance the sustainable development of the wind power industry is a key issue. Based on the three aspects of development planning, administration and market transaction, this paper presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of Chinese wind power policies in 2010s, aiming at the four main components of wind power chain, such as wind power construction, grid connection, transmission and sales. In addition, on the basis of the main indicators of wind power development effect, this paper analyzes the effect of Chinese wind power policies on wind power development. The results show that wind power policy has effectively promoted the development of Chinese wind power industry and the process of wind power participating in the electricity market transaction. Meanwhile, the problems in the growth of wind power, such as accommodation difficulty, inadequate subsidies and imperfect market system, are extracted. At last, facing the 14th Five-Year Plan and the goal of reaching the crest value of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, this paper puts forward policy suggestions to advance the stable development of Chinese wind power from the aspects of transmission, consumption, carbon quota trading, renewable energy quota system and auxiliary service market. The policy recommendations on wind power transmission, nearby accommodation, carbon transaction, mandatory RPS and ancillary service market, are proposed to deal with aforementioned problems from policy perspective, providing reference for the improvement of Chinese wind power policy system.