Aug. 29 (UPI) -- After tapping all of its near-shore capacity for wind, Norwegian certification body DNV GL said it would help China develop additional power resources offshore.
Huadong Engineering Corp. has contracted DNV GL, the Norwegian-based housing for independent energy experts and a certification body, to provide technical training and feasibility studies for an offshore wind farm.
"The country is now faced by the challenge that all the promising wind farm sites within 6 miles of the shore have already been exploited," DNV GL's statement read. "To boost capacity further and meet the 2020 target, China is having to explore locations that are further offshore."
China installed nearly 1.2 GW of near-shore wind power capacity last year. It has a national goal of 5 GW of offshore wind power by 2020. Huadong has plans to build a 1.1 gigawatt facility about 55 miles off the coast of eastern China.
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DNV GL will coordinate with Huadong on building China's first-ever high-voltage direct current offshore wind substation. Alternating current infrastructure is efficient enough for near-shore installations, but that efficiency degrades quickly over long distances.
China's so-called Blue Sky initiative calls for the eventual retirement of smaller coal-fired power plants. An air monitoring report from the Chinese government showed particulate matter, which contributes to climate change and adverse health, is on the decline.
The change is in part to due to an 8.1 percent decline in the use of coal and the 6.3 percent increase in clean energy consumption over the last five years.
Plans outlined by the Communist Party under President Xi Jinping call for a reduction in particulate matter in the air of 18 percent from 2015 levels by the end of the decade. Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, both greenhouse gases, are to decline by 15 percent from 2015 levels.
The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that 60 percent of all renewable energy jobs are in the Asian economies. For the solar panel industry, China has about 60 percent of the payrolls, representing about 2.2 million employees. China also accounts for 44 percent of the payrolls in the wind energy industry.
DNV GL ranked China third behind the United Kingdom and Germany in terms of installed offshore wind power capacity.
