While China has more than its share of environmental woes, it’s great to see the country embracing wind power with fervor, with wind capture capacity growing by 100% a year for the past few years. It’s predicted that China could become the wind energy global leader by as early as next year.
China has amazing wind resources – around 3226 million kilowatts of wind energy and the reserves available for actual development reach 253 million kilowatts.
In the area of Dabancheng, cradled between mountain ridges, wind is certainly plentiful and has been known to blow trains of their tracks.
Dabancheng now hosts one of Asia’s biggest wind farms, consisting of 118 giant turbines standing 68-metre-high high. The turbines are managed by various companies. One of the largest stakeholders, Xijiang Tianfang Wind Power, produces 110,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity from its Dabancheng turbines, with plans to add 50,000 more by November.
China built its first wind farm in Rongcheng, Shandong Pro in 1986. By the end of last year, it had 6 gigawatts (6 billion watts) of installed wind power generating capacity. That’s enough to supply the electric needs of around 6 million average California homes.
Read more about China’s booming wind energy industry
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