Traditionally, provinces aligned their short-term development targets with those defined in the national government’s five-year plan. With the plan unreleased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, many provinces have made their own goals for 2025. Some have gone so far as to define 2035 targets.
Ambitious targets for 2025 and 2035
The leading region of Jiangsu (operating about 60% of the national capacity in 2019) is targeting 1.8 GW of additional capacity by 2025, a far cry from 6.6 GW it commissioned in 2021. Other regions have more ambitious goals. The highest individual target comes from Guangdong, which expects to commission 11.8 GW by 2025, in addition to the 4.8 GW it added in 2021.
Read more: China becomes the world’s largest offshore wind market
Perhaps more ambitious are the targets of the regions of Guangxi, Hainan and Shandong which combine up to 11 GW, despite the fact that these regions have very little to no local operating capacity.
These regions have also identified significant capacities in their waters, with Shandong targeting a total capacity of 35 GW by 2035. These targets show an increase of 31 GW between 2022 and 2025. If realised, this will mean China will have an operating capacity of 57 GW by the end of 2025: a whopping 575% jump from 10 GW by the end of 2020.
Can the success of 2021 be matched?
Looking back at the historic achievement of the Chinese offshore wind industry in 2021, there is potential for these 2025 targets to be met.
It is important to note, however, the industry has additional challenges ahead. It remains to be seen how these provinces will procure enough wind turbine installation vessels for the task, in such a short timeframe, as well as the O&M fleet required to keep capacity running.
Read more: 2021 was a success story for Chinese offshore wind but challenges lay ahead
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