Wind power now No.3 energy resource

Wind power has surpassed nuclear power to become China's third largest energy resource, but the growth of the wind power industry has slowed, experts said at a seminar held over the weekend.

Wind-generated electricity in China amounted to 100.4 billion kilowatt-hours in 2012, accounting for 2 percent of the country's total electricity output last year, up from 1.5 percent in 2011, data from the China Wind Energy Association (CWEA) showed Saturday.

The latest figure showed that China's use of wind power has surpassed its use of nuclear power, but still lags behind thermal power and hydropower, He Dexin, chairman of the association, said at the seminar held Saturday.

"This change is in accordance with the government's efforts to increase its use of renewable energy as a means to reduce carbon emissions and cut reliance on fossil fuels," Li Linghuan, an energy industry analyst at Shandong-based consultancy Sublime China Information, told the Global Times Sunday.

However, the country's development of wind power has slowed down, with 14 gigawatts of newly installed capacity from wind turbines in 2012, down from 20.66 gigawatts in 2011, according to He.

He noted that the industry is facing bottlenecks such as overcapacity of wind turbines, increasing trade protectionism, grid connection barriers and the wastage in wind power.

The CWEA estimates that the country's newly installed wind power capacity will rise to 18 gigawatts in 2013. Local governments have sped up approving wind power generation projects since the beginning of this year.

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