China's wind power curtailment dipped to record-low in 2019

The rate for 2019 dropped to 4% from 7% in 2018.

China’s national wind power curtailment rate dropped to 4% in 2019, 3ppt lower than the 7% in 2018, data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) revealed. This is the third consecutive year of decline since the peak of 17.1% in 2016.

Most of the provinces achieved low levels of curtailment that were well below the government’s target of 5%, UOB Kay Hian noted. Only three provinces saw higher curtailment rate, with Xinjiang at the highest of 14.0%, Gansu at 7.6% and Inner Mongolia at 7.1%. The three provinces accounted for 81% of total abandoned wind power in 2019.

The three provinces saw a significant decline in curtailment level, as Gansu’s curtailment rate dropped 25.4ppt YoY, followed by Xinjiang’s 15ppt YoY, and Inner Mongolia’s 7.9ppt YoY. In addition, national wind power utilisation hours (UH) dropped 0.6% YoY or 13 hours to 2,082 hours in 2019.

According to UOBKH, the state grid company has set the target utilisation rate of wind power for each province and municipality in 2020. Most of the utilisation rate targets are >95%, except for North Hebei (94.1%), Gansu (93.0%) and Xinjiang (88.7%). The targets for Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Fujian, Sichuan, Chongqing and Tibet are 100% each.

National wind power capacity addition nearly reached a five-year high at 25.7GW in 2019, up 25% YoY. Cumulative wind power capacity reached 210.10GW as of end-2019, accounting for 10.4% of total power capacity.

Offshore wind power capacity climbed to 5.9GW as at end-2019, up 50.1% YoY from 4.0GW as at end-2018. In addition, capacity addition in Q4 2019 reached 12.7GW, accounting for 49.2% of the new addition.

Under the “Clean Energy Consumption Action Plan (2018-20)”, the target utilisation rate and curtailment rate for national wind power in 2020 were set at 95% and 5%, respectively. According to UOBKH, these targets are sustainable as they were fulfilled in advance as the national wind power curtailment rate decreased to 4% in 2019.

The state grid company’s wind power utilisation rate targets are higher than those in the action plan. “For instance, the utilisation rate targets for Xinjiang, Gansu, Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Hebei have been raised to 88.7%, 93%, 95.2%, 95%, 99.1% from 85%, 85%, 94%, 90%, 95% respectively under the action plan,” UOBKH noted.

“We believe the state grid company’s new targets for wind power in 2020 should be an implicit guarantee of low curtailment levels, given a) the state grid company, as the executive institute of the RE projects connection, will scientifically assess the capability for RE connection and set a reasonable target; and b) it will not connect excess capacity at the expense of rising curtailment rate,” UOBKH added.