Prospettive di sviluppo dell’energia eolica in Cina

As a consequence of strong recent increases in the Chinese consumption of electric power, significant doubts about the ability to face the Chinese energy demand coming from industrial, handicraft and domestic sectors are lately arisen. The need to free itself, at least partially, from oil and coal, has created various political and economic initiatives culminated in the "Law on renewable energies" of February 28th, 2005 that will come into force on January 11th, 2006. In this context, the program of wind energy exploitation assumes particular importance, because China has abundant wind energy resources. At an estimated 23-29% capacity factor, annual potential production of electricity from wind power could be as great as 506-632 TWh. Furthermore, China has a large area of shallow sea along its eastern coastline, and preliminary estimates show that the offshore wind energy potential may be three times greater than onshore potential.