There is some mixed news out of China for renewable energy supporters. Recently, China has expressed its intention to have renewable energy meet 15% of its energy needs by 2020, which would double its 2005 percentage. However, due to its massive size and creaking infrastructure, many environmental benefits may be lost.
Last year, up to 30% of China’s wind-power capacity was unconnected to the energy grid. Additionally, due to wind energy’s natural unreliability, the country is producing more new coal power plants that can meet and uncovered demand left by failure in the energy grid or wind-power generation. Therefore, if the grid is functioning poorly or if there is simply little or no wind-power being generated, then coal power will still fulfill China’s energy needs. Since coal power plants have a length start-up time, it seems inefficient to use them as a backup source of power for wind-power turbines, though.
Another hurdle facing China’s widespread adoption of renewable energy is its seemingly ancient power grid. If it wants to utilize fully renewable energy sources, it will have to reinvent its power grid utilizing smart grid technology (which we’ve gone over here). By having precise power allocation and management, China’s power distributors can manage the existing energy more efficiently thereby reducing the overall cost and strain on the nation’s energy production.
China’s seeming difficulty with implementing renewable energy highlights troubles that other nations are facing with renewable energy. Besides necessitating redundant power production facilities, there is a high cost for constructing the new renewable energy plants. In addition, many people perceive renewable energy projects as costing jobs by closing down existing plants only to replace them with more efficient plants. However, the opposite is the case. Many plans to increase renewable energy production have deadlines well into the future. Within a few years, we will all have a much clearer picture of how the renewable energy movement will play out.
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