Wind energy plants 'ahead of schedule'

China's installed wind power capacity will reach 100 million kilowatts by the end of 2014, a year ahead of the scheduled targets for the year outlined in the country's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), a senior official said on Wednesday.

As China's new energy market continues to be promoted by policymakers, its installed wind power capacity had already hit 83 million kW by the end of August, said Zhu Ming, deputy director of the new energy and renewable energy department with the National Energy Administration.

Addressing the 2014 China Wind Power conference in Beijing, he said the country should now accelerate its medium-and long-term development plan for wind power with more ambitious goals to ensure that China will reach 200 million kW in wind power capacity by 2020.

"Wind power will make up as much as 5 percent of total power consumption by then," he said. "Wind has become the third-largest power resource in China and the country will continue to shift its energy supply strategy from fossil fuel to new and renewable energy."

As the biggest wind power market globally, China has continued to attract international interest in its industry.

Denmark's Vestas, the world's largest maker of wind turbines, announced a new China strategy on Tuesday to focus on producing higher quality wind turbines for the market, and machines that can produce energy from lower wind speeds.

Anders Runevad, its president, said the low wind speed market particularly offers huge potential and the company plans to tempt Chinese buyers with an advanced version of its existing 2-megawatt machine.

Vestas first entered China in 1986 and used to be the country's No 1 wind energy player, until it was overtaken by domestic rivals in 2005, after they enjoyed rapid growth.

Huang Shaozhong, head of the National Energy Administration's market supervising department, said domestic manufacturers supplied more than 90 percent of the country's wind power equipment in 2013 and many have started exporting - a far cry from previously when around 80 percent of the wind equipment in China was imported.

According to data from the China Wind Energy Association, around 1,300 companies have already taken part in wind energy project investment and construction.

State-owned enterprises are still the major participants accounting for 960 of those projects with combined generation capacity of 62.4 gigawatts, or 81 percent of the country's total.

China's offshore wind power sector has also achieved rapid development in recent years, becoming the world's largest this year, Huang said.

By the end of 2013 China had approved offshore wind power projects with a total capacity of 2.2 gigawatts, 390 mW of which were already completed, according to the association.

Most of the offshore projects are located in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong provinces.