China's wind power capacity sees substantial growth

China's on-grid wind power capacity reached over 50 gigawatts helping its entire wind power sector to witness substantial growth.

According to China's State Grid, on-grid wind power capacity under its distribution has reached 50.26 gigawatts as of this year, indicating an annual growth rate of 87 percent for the last six years.

However, linking regional networks to the national power grid remains a stumbling block for the growth of the sector, said Zhang Zhengling, spokesman for the State Grid.

The regional concentration of wind resources and technical obstacles have prevented the efficient use of wind power, the company said.

"The key problem is that regional connections are still weak, and there is not yet a unified national market and corresponding grid network," said Shu Yinbiao, deputy manager of the State Grid.

Zhang noted that China's utilization of wind energy has reached a "relatively high level" following a string of measures to monitor and adjust the use of the energy.

In 2011, power generated from wind totaled 70.6 billion kilowatt-hours, 28.2 times the amount generated in 2006, according to Zhang.

Shu said China should speed up the construction of trans-regional power grids in order to meet its new energy development goals.

The country's on-grid wind power capacity is expected to reach 100 gigawatts by 2015 and 200 gigawatts by 2020.

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