China Electrical energy Knowledgeable Talks Wind, Photo voltaic, & Storage In The Nation

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Final Up to date on: twentieth February 2025, 12:56 pm

Lately I had the chance to sit down down with one of many main specialists on electrical technology in China to debate the absurd scales of all types of electrical technology and storage. Within the first half of our dialog, we talked coal, fuel, and nuclear. Within the second half — calmly edited transcript under — we talked wind, photo voltaic, and storage.

Michael Barnard [MB]: Hello, welcome again to Redefining Power Tech. I’m your host, Michael Barnard. As all the time, we’re sponsored by TFIE Technique, a agency which assists funding funds and companies to choose the winners and keep away from the losers in local weather options. My visitor in the present day is David Fishman, senior supervisor on the Lantau Group and one of many world’s main specialists on what’s taking place in China with electrical technology. Be a part of us for the second half of our fascinating dialog.

Okay, in order that’s the unhealthy stuff. We’ve talked about coal, we’ve talked about pure fuel, the fossil fuels. However now let’s pivot to the holy moly stuff that China has been doing with the opposite stuff.

I’ve a delicate spot for wind vitality.I’ve gone by way of most domains of main local weather issues and after I began electrical technology was one of many ones I began with. I began by taking a look at wind and understanding every thing about wind vitality. I’ve obtained an actual delicate spot for the house. It’s going to be not eclipsed, however in the long run it’s going to be extra photo voltaic than wind within the world grid. I had to surrender on that concept. However inform us about wind vitality in China. It’s simply such a captivating story of extraordinary development and over the previous two.

David Fishman [DF]: There’s three sorts of wind that I’ll discuss. One that’s fairly mature, one that’s maturing and one that’s not too long ago emergent that I feel could be very attention-grabbing. So first onshore wind, the mature one. Tons and tons of onshore wind up within the northeast, the north and the northwest. They’ve been constructing it nicely since about 2014, 2015, even going earlier than that. However the actual huge spike got here round 2015, 2016. They obtained into hassle with curtailment at the moment. Sort of overbuilt in the meanwhile. The grid wasn’t in a position to obtain that a lot wind energy. They couldn’t function flexibly. Coal was getting precedence within the dispatch queue and kicking wind out, stuff like that. A variety of traders obtained burnt.

2015, 2016, loads of overseas traders who had rushed in to construct wind in western China after which weren’t getting their subsidies and so they bought off all their belongings and left swearing to by no means do China renewable investments ever once more. To my understanding, there’s a minimum of one funding financial institution based mostly in Hong Kong which I’ve talked to individuals at. They are saying each time I enter a brand new mission initiation code in our system and I say that I need to do a renewable mission in China, an automatic flag pops up that claims, have you ever reviewed the file on 2015, how a lot cash we misplaced on that wind mission in China? Be sure you assessment that earlier than we proceed with this new mission. So, , they’re conscious of it. After which issues really stabilized and tapered off in the previous couple of years.

So the onshore wind in what we name the three norths in China, the Northeast and the Northwest, has actually not been as aggressive as I hoped, possibly within the final three years or so. Wind capability development has nonetheless been wholesome, in fact, and, however for China, it’s been underperforming, in my view, versus what might have been. And that’s as a result of I feel they’re taking a look at some actually tough interconnection points that the capability construct out for has exceeded the infrastructure construct out. And that also you’re seeing points with dispatch not being clever or versatile sufficient to accommodate all of those wind assets coming on-line in what are primarily barren deserts, proper. Locations with no load. You might have to have the ability to get them right into a line, ideally a UHV line, and ship them some other place the place they’re.

In order that’s been the story of onshore wind doing nicely.

MB: However, however let’s simply take a look at this as a result of I hear conflicting stuff. Yearly since 2014 I’ve been doing a comparability of nuclear versus wind and photo voltaic as a result of it’s simply a captivating variance factor. However what’s the precise expertise? So what’s the diploma of curtailment in China nowadays on the bottom versus Western headlines or different stuff?

DF: That’s particularly, at this second, a really pertinent query. In the previous couple of months particularly, all people I do know within the trade right here is complaining about curtailment. All people says curtailment is excessive out west, and but the figures on curtailment popping out on the provincial degree don’t help that.

MB: What are the figures? I imply, I used to be on stage in Brussels and I used to be listening to horror tales about European curtailment. I’m simply making an attempt to get precise capability issue numbers, , which might be plausible and if anyone has them, it’s you.

DF: Formally each province has its personal KPIs for curtailment, however they’re alleged to be beneath 5%. Within the final 12 months, a number of provinces relaxed their requirement and allowed it to go as 10%. Formally no province has increased than 10% curtailment and most of them haven’t any increased than 5% curtailment. Now I consider 100% that’s true for the japanese provinces and down south and wherever that has a big energy demand. I’ve little doubt that they’re losing little or no of their wind energy. Nonetheless yesterday Lauri Myllyvirta at CREA printed on what occurred in November in China. Why did thermal technology develop in November 2024 in China, although energy demand development was actually small?

It ought to have been potential for renewables to cowl 100% of latest energy demand development. How did they not, how did we now have all this new capability that couldn’t meet? It was like 2.2% 12 months on 12 months development and also you couldn’t meet that with all of your new renewables. He and I had been speaking about that for a couple of month now, making an attempt to determine it out for some time and I had talked to a bunch of individuals on the Chinese language aspect too. What all people got here to the conclusion was that the curtailment numbers are simply not reflective of actuality. The technology numbers are correct. They’re producing as a lot energy as they mentioned they generate.

This was recommended to me by a good friend. I don’t need to say it’s, , absolutely the phrase of God right here that that is the way it’s carried out. However he mentioned the best way that it might be carried out if he was going to do it was you modify the supply numbers. Era numbers are literally technology numbers, however you modify the denominator. So that you say it was a cloudy day, it was much less obtainable. Era numbers are actual and curtailment numbers calculated. They appear actual too. However possibly you’ve obtained some native officers, some county degree, some municipal officers who’re involved about not assembly their KPIs on managing curtailment.

MB: Let me ask the query. Most individuals don’t know practically sufficient about China. What number of provinces are there in China?

DF: You could possibly say China has wherever from 32 to 36 provinces, relying on what you’re counting as provinces versus particular administrative areas. However , as we’ll say 30 plus provincial degree administrative models.

MB: That’s an excellent quantity to start out with. It’s across the similar as India, however these provinces there are a lot smaller as a result of it’s a 3rd the land mass. We’re speaking about pretty huge issues. It’s the identical land mass as the USA, with 30 sub-national administrative models or so. Are they as weirdly formed and sized as the USA? Is there a Rhode Island?

DF: Oh yeah, there’s a province known as Gansu. For those who ever lookup the form of Gansu, it’s decided by some mountain ranges that encompass it. And it appears, it’s similar to this lengthy skinny banana trying factor with bits jutting out to the aspect. There are some bizarre formed provinces. There aren’t any exceedingly small ones aside from Macau and Hong Kong. Then you definitely’ve obtained Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing. They’re nationally administered municipalities. There are some oddities there, however for essentially the most half they’re huge chunky provinces.

MB: Okay, so 30 or so all of the japanese and southern, all of the southeastern ones are not any curtailment to talk of. In order that leaves, , possibly 15 or 20 provinces the place we’re seeing curtailment between 5 to 10% formally. What do you, what’s your, what’s the. Take the perfect guess you’ve gotten concerning the precise share of curtailment within the 5% provinces. Is it 6% or is it 9%?

DF: It’s really not even that many provinces. It’s like the USA. As you exit west, the provinces get bigger since you’re extra sparsely populated. I feel I noticed in Lauri’s evaluation there’s one thing like seven or eight provinces the place issues simply don’t actually add up. That is all anecdotally, however after I’m listening to from individuals speaking about, oh, we are able to’t promote any energy, the, , we’re seeing such curtailment charges, they’re speaking about numbers like 20 or 25%. In order unhealthy as the times again in 2016, however, , no strategy to confirm it. And if particular person initiatives are saying 20%, that doesn’t imply all people’s getting 20%. It simply signifies that mission is seeing 20%.

MB: It’s attention-grabbing as a result of as soon as once more the usual problem with China, there’s the official story after which there’s what’s taking place on the bottom. Generally they’re very nicely aligned and typically they’re not.

In order that’s the massive chunk of onshore stuff. There are better curtailment issues than are reported. That’s problematic information. That’s what it’s. What’s the second huge chunk of wind vitality?

DF: Offshore wind. Just about each coastal province in China has a plan for offshore wind. Sadly, for essentially the most half, I feel their offshore wind growth has been slower than anticipated. Now all of them do have enormous plans and they’re getting began with them and a few initiatives have already been constructed. Nevertheless it’s undoubtedly, in case you needed to choose an space the place you say like, wow, it seems China doesn’t all the time construct renewables sooner than we thought they might, I might say offshore wind has possibly been the realm the place they’ve really been somewhat slower, somewhat bit slower than anticipated. Nearly each coastal province has between 15 and 30 gigawatts offshore wind of their medium time period construct plan. Tons and tons of capability.

I’ve little doubt that they’ll really construct it, it’s simply that it’s taken somewhat little bit of time to get going the best way the onshore developments have gone. Clearly it’s actually enormous for these coastal provinces which have nowhere to place renewables onshore. They haven’t any house for wind or photo voltaic onshore. So in the event that they wished to extend their renewables consumption, they’re going to import from some other place in China. They have been going to must get it from western China on the opposite finish of a UHV line or you possibly can construct offshore wind. In order that’s going to be their answer, I feel, to assembly their renewables targets with regionally generated inexperienced energy.

MB: There’s one metropolis I checked out, it was very attention-grabbing. It’s in an enormous bay and the bay is 80, 90 or 100 kilometers throughout. And the town’s huge, I overlook which one it was, but it surely caught my eye as a result of they have been constructing offshore photo voltaic and I used to be considering they’re not going to be placing floating photo voltaic there. No, they constructed a honking large platform within the sea and put conventional photo voltaic on that. And I used to be considering, wow, that’s a extremely huge platform. Let me simply examine one thing. They usually had like 10 or 20 occasions the scale of a wind farm additional out to sea. The offshore capacities are simply absurd. That was like one metropolis with, as you say, 16 gigawatts of offshore wind.

DF: When your main bottleneck is land availability and the sensitivities round utilizing, for instance, farmland for industrial functions, you then begin to get actually inventive. Can we construct platforms out within the ocean? Can we do floating wind? Can we do floating photo voltaic? Issues that don’t make sense often, but when the choice was spending a ton of cash within the developed coastal provinces to amass land, or spending a ton of cash to construct lengthy distance transmission strains to get it there from some other place within the nation the place the land is affordable, then rapidly constructing platforms on the ocean begins to make sense.

MB: Offshore wind usually made much more sense as a result of the capability components could be fairly excessive as nicely. I didn’t really get a capability issue reply for China’s onshore wind. I’ve heard various issues there.

DF: 24 or one thing like that. It’s decrease than different locations. I haven’t checked the latest 12 months, however I need to.

MB: 24 is sweet sufficient. It’s shut sufficient for a podcast. That’s decrease than the perfect locations in the USA. What concerning the offshore wind capability issue?

DF: Increased, however I don’t really know that off the highest of my head, sadly.

MB: So onshore wind, offshore wind. Do you occur to know roughly the overall deliberate offshore wind capability and initiatives which might be sort of in a pipeline is. It’s like 16 to twenty per metropolis and each metropolis on the coast has them.

DF: What number of is that once more, off the highest of my head? I’m not going to have the ability to inform you. It’s. You’re undoubtedly taking a look at dozens to a whole bunch of gigawatts.

MB: How a lot offshore wind there’s as greatest you possibly can approximate.

DF: Let me discover what you’ve obtained actual fast. Oh, that’s horrible. 2023, we solely added 7 gigawatts offshore wind. I’m simply pulling this in a short time.

MB: Properly, it’s nonetheless 7 gigawatts greater than the USA has in complete.

DF: Look, 2024, we’re anticipating that we added round 13 gigawatts offshore wind. So once more, in comparison with the numbers that you simply’d count on or that you simply get used to listening to from the remainder of the trade, that are all the time so superlative, it does actually really feel just like the offshore wind numbers for China are modest.

MB: It’s attention-grabbing to me as a result of it requires specialised ships of some sorts and China is likely one of the solely geographies on the earth that may really construct these ships. However they nonetheless must construct these ships and their ship constructing is oversubscribed.

DF: Yeah, I imply they’re army ships and passenger ships and transport ships and each kind of ship. I suppose even China can discover a strategy to run out of manufacturing capability.

MB: That’s two of three sorts of wind. I used to be sort of stunned there was a 3rd kind. Let’s speak concerning the third kind.

DF: This one’s fairly new. Distributed wind. There’s a brand new coverage that simply got here out within the final couple months known as 10,000 Villages Harness the Wind. It’s a coverage for village degree distributed wind to be promoted in a few of these coastal provinces. Once more we’re speaking about areas that don’t have loads of room for enormous developments. It’s not going to be utility scale developments, enormous wind farms blanketing the wind panorama, however in the identical approach that distributed photo voltaic ended up being so profitable in japanese China, in case you can slip a windmill right here and there, put a turbine on this village and a turbine in that village, and might you mixture collectively a pair gigawatts right here and there?

That’s one thing I’m trying ahead to quite a bit to see if it’s potential that this new coverage, , based mostly on the WHO rooftop photo voltaic growth program being so profitable. I’m actually eager to see if this 10,000 Villages Harness the Wind distributed wind program is equally profitable. That’s been a brand new coverage since August or September, one thing like that. I’m undecided if we’ve seen any new initiatives that I can level to on account of that coverage, however I’m watching that one rigorously.

MB: That’s going to be very attention-grabbing as a result of in two or three months I’m keynoting the US Distributed Wind Power Affiliation’s annual convention in Arlington, simply exterior of Washington. This will likely be a topic as a result of it’s a captivating factor. I’ve been taking a look at distributed wind for a very long time. Group wind was an enormous deal in Germany, for instance, at the start of the vitality lineup. They’ve all types of small wind farms which might be owned by the cities and stuff. It’ll be very attention-grabbing to see. It’ll even be very attention-grabbing to see what they do with the setback attributable to noise as a result of world well being organizations say not more than 40 decibels of noise in bedrooms at night time is beneficial as a result of in any other case you lose sleep.

I’m simply considering that, , with the density of inhabitants in japanese China, that’s going to be laborious to attain. However the various is coal crops.

DF: Possibly, possibly they’ll use a kind of as an alternative of those that go like this. It’s a kind of cycle wind generators. Proper. You understand, they spin a distinct approach.

MB: I’ll simply say that the effectivity of these are horribly unhealthy. One of many topics I do know far an excessive amount of about is wind vitality.

Okay, so we now have a lot of onshore wind that’s affected by curtailment. We have now a lot of offshore wind deliberate, but it surely’s not rising practically as quick as every thing else in China. It’s one other space the place there are blockages. However the plans are enormous. Dozens of cities with 16 to twenty gigawatts of wind vitality deliberate. It may very well be a whole bunch of gigawatts offshore wind that’s feeding metropolis grids within the subsequent 10 years. It’s going to be attention-grabbing once they eliminate the bottlenecks. 13 gigawatts put in final 12 months. Okay. Then distributed wind, which is that this new factor that’s going to be attention-grabbing. Subsequent subject, photo voltaic.

DF: Find it irresistible.

MB: Go for it.

DF: Let’s discuss photo voltaic. So our huge buckets of photo voltaic, in fact you’ve obtained utility scale photo voltaic, after which there’s a subset of that known as megabase photo voltaic. You’ve obtained your commonplace giant photo voltaic plant. You’ve obtained a 50 megawatt, 100 megawatt photo voltaic plant someplace, and you then’ve obtained a Chinese language model of that, which is a desert megabase. Which means you set your photo voltaic farm within the Gobi desert and it’s really a gigawatt of photo voltaic subsequent to a bunch of wind generators subsequent to a few coal crops subsequent to an enormous battery array. The entire thing is linked to a UHV line which is sending all the ability some other place. That’s what you get out west, Inside Mongol, these desert mega bases.

So photo voltaic, common utility scale, photo voltaic, tremendous base, photo voltaic, distributed photo voltaic, which has been.

MB: Wait, wait, wait. Megabase and tremendous base.

DF: Sorry, I’m simply mixing my phrases. They’re each giant, huge bases. Okay, hyper base.

MB: Now, if reminiscence serves, the most important photo voltaic farm on the earth is in China. I feel it’s 20 gigawatts proper now.

DF: Or 22, they could name it farm, however possibly it’s many linked ones and I feel India additionally has a declare to at least one.

MB: The dimensions of every thing in China is so enormous, it boggles the thoughts.

DF: Let’s see. The Xinjiang Photo voltaic Farm, 5 gigawatts and so they’re nonetheless increasing it. No, wait, the Talatan Photo voltaic Park, 15 gigawatts. Yeah, they’re giant and there’s a number of ones on this dimension. You possibly can even get them confused about which one you’re referring to.

MB: You pronounce them a lot better than I do. I studied Mandarin for a 12 months or so in Singapore. As I’m in a distinct a part of the world, what language will I fail to be taught this time? We have now mega scale. What I heard you say was one thing very attention-grabbing there. They’ve obtained a photo voltaic farm that’s hybridized with wind battery and firming thermal technology on the finish of an extremely excessive voltage, extremely excessive multi gigawatt capability HVDC line that’s going into the demand facilities within the southeast. For the geography challenged, how distant is the Gobi Desert from Shanghai the place you’re sitting, for instance? Roughly? I imply, how lengthy are these HVDC strains?

DF: I imply, we’re speaking 1000’s of kilometers. See, I’m simply clicking right here. Shanghai to the Gobi Desert, 2,000km. That’s lengthy HVDC strains.

MB: I spend loads of time on transmission as a result of it’s an important a part of the toolkit, , broadening the grid in order that your wind and photo voltaic could be the place the electrons are versus the place the demand is. It’s very attention-grabbing to see what China has carried out there. I hadn’t realized they have been doing firmed bases for the HVDC but it surely makes full sense now that I give it some thought. It’s an apparent factor.

DF: The road is constructed, it’s transmission infrastructure. It’s constructed assuming a sure utilization price, a sure capability issue over 20 years or 30 years or 40 years. For those who’re not in a position to assure the utilization of that line long run, why would the grid construct it? You’ve obtained to have the ability to say we’re sending energy by way of that line more often than not or the entire time that we now have agency technology on that aspect, we signal contracts on the opposite finish of the road to produce energy on that foundation. We will’t ask for forgiveness the solar’s not shining, we have to be supplying energy.

MB: It’s attention-grabbing as a result of I examine and distinction to among the issues just like the solar cable that Mike Cannon-Brooks, the Australian billionaire is constructing within the desert of Northern Australia with a 3,500 kilometer subsea cable to Singapore which has obtained a pair extra permissions not too long ago. It’s shifting alongside. However I hadn’t heard a lot concerning the firming stuff. The Morocco to UK one is wind, photo voltaic and batteries for 20 hours firmed electrical energy on daily basis. It’s the identical capability because the Hinkley website C reactors for 20 hours a day for a fraction of the price. It’s going to be very attention-grabbing to see how this performs out.

I all the time say this to individuals, go take a look at what China is doing, be taught the teachings from them in case you presumably can as a result of they’ve been doing this at nice scale. In order that’s one class. What number of classes of photo voltaic?

DF: We’ve obtained three right here additionally. Okay, so we simply talked about utility scale and the sort of the intense instance of utility scale floor mounted which is your tremendous bases but in addition the nation is simply coated with common floor mounted utility scale initiatives within the 10 to 50 to 100, , megawatt vary, lots of these.

MB: Has it been reported, the official stats for utility scale photo voltaic additions in 2024?

DF: Not for the entire 12 months. We’ll get that in all probability after the Chinese language New 12 months.

MB: We really get a quantity early.

DF: Yeah, you do get an early quantity and you then get a later adjustment quantity. The problem, I feel, is all the time that it’s going, it’s solely going to be your utility scale installations. It’s going to exclude distributed. We obtained distributed photo voltaic, on this case, rooftop photo voltaic. Rooftop photo voltaic is “Oh, don’t overlook rooftop photo voltaic” in different markets.

In China, it’s 50% of the market. It’s completely large. Japanese China has been the motive force of rooftop photo voltaic. There’s little or no rooftop photo voltaic in western China. Why would you hassle? However japanese China, quick on land, tons and many rooftops, so a lot of rooftop photo voltaic. That they had a program, it’s nonetheless ongoing, known as the Entire County Rooftop Photo voltaic Promotion Program.

I really like this program. It was a extremely efficient, sort of a public personal collaboration. It required municipal governments to tender out the rights to develop the entire rooftops inside their jurisdiction to SOEs or to personal corporations. Anybody who wished to submit a bid on creating all these rooftops without delay. However the requirement was that you simply needed to do all of them. You needed to do all the federal government buildings, all the commercial and industrial rooftops, and all of the residential buildings, and also you needed to hit sure quotas for each. So 50% of all the general public buildings wanted to have rooftop photo voltaic, 30% of all factories and industrial buildings, and a minimum of 20% of all residential rooftops. You submitted a consolidated tender to do all of that without delay.

You couldn’t choose and select like, oh, residential doesn’t make any cash. I solely need to do industrial rooftops. No, to win the tender, you needed to submit a bid to do all of it without delay. A single county right here, the municipality places out their tender. A few builders take a look at the county, they do their surveying. They are saying, we expect there’s in all probability about 170 megawatts of rooftop photo voltaic potential capability. Right here’s our greatest worth, and right here’s how lengthy it’s going to take to do it. The municipality selects a options supplier and so they exit and so they construct your complete county’s rooftop photo voltaic. They usually replicated that over, , a whole bunch, 1000’s of counties in japanese China.

They managed to yield tens, dozens of gigawatts of rooftop photo voltaic in a few of these japanese Chinese language provinces. After all, you possibly can’t construct rooftop photo voltaic like that perpetually. There’s going to be a spike and you then exhaust your rooftops and you then begin to go down once more. We noticed Shandong province, for instance, is on its downswing now for distributed photo voltaic. Not as a result of they’re dropping curiosity in it as a result of they’re operating out of rooftops. However different provinces are going to be going by way of the identical cycle. They’ll get this huge swing the place they’ll have the ability to set up 30, 40, 50 gigawatts of rooftop photo voltaic in a interval of some years after which there’ll be no extra after that.

The second huge supply of renewable photo voltaic capability development has been these rooftop photo voltaic packages in japanese China.

MB: I’ll simply do a examine and distinction as a result of it’s sort of enjoyable. Within the west, the most important rooftop photo voltaic facility on the earth is on the Tesla Gigafactory in Texas, so far as I do know. All people’s like, holy crap, is that ever huge. That’s 30 megawatts. Each county in China has, from what you’re telling me, way more rooftop photo voltaic.

DF: Oh yeah. I’ve been to a few of these amenities, proper? I went as much as, we visited one of many corporations and went to the highest of an area highschool. It was only a city, proper? It’s a city the place, like loads of American cities, all of the municipal buildings are proper subsequent to one another downtown? You might have the highschool subsequent to the police station, subsequent to the hospital, subsequent to the civic heart. It’s all on this little triangle. I’m standing on the highschool and so they’ve obtained a plaque up there. They’re nearly to do their grid connection for 160 kilowatts of rooftop photo voltaic on this facility. After which the constructing subsequent to it, they’ve obtained 130 kilowatts. Over there they’ve obtained extra, and so they put all of it collectively and this little cluster proper right here of this part of this city has possibly a megawatt or two of energy. After we end this city, we’ll go over to the following city later.

We return to the corporate’s assembly room and so they’ve gained the tender to develop this county. They’ve obtained this excessive decision map of the county up on their assembly room wall. That is all we do. That is our life for the following 12 months and a half. We’re simply constructing on rooftops on this county. He appears on the wall and he goes, what number of cities do you assume there are on this county? I don’t know, like 100. He goes, There’s 900. There are 900 cities on this county. And what you simply noticed with the highschool, the center college, the hospital, the civic heart and the police station, we’re gonna do 900 extra occasions.

MB: The dimensions of stuff over there’s only a dream. It’s being replicated within the world south. Pakistan rooftop photo voltaic was off the charts as a result of there was a glut of photo voltaic panels final 12 months. They have been dust low cost in the marketplace. All people simply purchased them. Like balcony photo voltaic. Alignment with the solar is not vital in Germany. Persons are shopping for them to hold off their balconies and tie on with zip ties and so they’re plugging them. They’re constructing photo voltaic fences as a result of they’re so low cost that you simply don’t care about alignment with the solar.

DF: You are able to do that right here too. You should purchase them on the Chinese language Web for 20 bucks. You should purchase a rooftop hanging photo voltaic panel setup which you can plug your cellphone into so you possibly can cost your cellphone out of your photo voltaic panel and stuff like that. After all, as low cost as they’re in Germany, you possibly can make certain that they’re even cheaper right here as a result of they’re making an attempt to eliminate their provide. Each cool little toy which you can provide, which you can create, that’s provided by solar energy anyone has developed as a result of the photo voltaic producers are determined to search out individuals to purchase their panels.

MB: All the pieces in China is cheaper. Individuals simply don’t notice the buying energy parity distinction. However we’re getting right down to the quick strokes right here. We’re an hour and 20 minutes into the dialogue and we nonetheless have storage. Properly, we nonetheless have yet another class of photo voltaic to do earlier than we get to storage. So what’s the third class of photo voltaic? And the way huge and absurd is that?

DF: We’ve already talked about it too. We’ve obtained floating photo voltaic. Floating photo voltaic is break up into the ocean model of floating photo voltaic, which is, truthfully, simply floor mounted photo voltaic over water. True floating photo voltaic — photo voltaic on a ship, as Jenny Chase likes to say — isn’t really a lot of a factor in any respect. I consider there are some pilots, some efforts to do true floating photo voltaic as a result of China has a pilot to do every thing. However a lot of the so known as floating photo voltaic in China is floor mounted over water photo voltaic and that’s each within the ocean and over lakes and mine subsidence areas. So an space the place they have been mining beforehand creates a concave within the floor and you find yourself with a person made reservoir.

These have been focused by a number of provinces that used to have mining industries and now they’ve nice huge mine pits to construct photo voltaic over them. They’re not going to get a ton of capability out of that, however they’re going to get capability out of it. Various provinces have named it of their 5 12 months plans as locations the place they intend to get possibly 3 gigawatts of photo voltaic from floating photo voltaic amenities, one thing.

MB: Properly I’m glad to listen to that as a result of I went deep on floating photo voltaic a number of years in the past. I used to be contemplating it for the US Southwest the place they’d extra drought situations for a pumped hydro facility. I talked to one of many world’s main specialists on it, grabbed him, pulled him into the conferences. What I spotted is that floating photo voltaic sort of sucks. So I’m glad to listen to that after I hear about China’s floating photo voltaic, what they’re actually doing is driving pilings into the seabed and placing a platform after which placing floor mounted photo voltaic on one thing steady. As a result of floating photo voltaic doesn’t make loads of sense. The wind hundreds, the opposite issues.

As I say to individuals, in case you’ve obtained a sheltered reservoir on the equator, that’s okay for floating photo voltaic. All the pieces else, not likely. Okay, so there’s floating photo voltaic and what was that quantity? A province would possibly solely have 3 gigawatts in plan, which is to say greater than most provinces in Canada are even contemplating ever for all photo voltaic.

DF: Yeah, my scales of reference are somewhat bit distorted for what I feel is small, medium and huge from working on this trade.

MB: China has, is it half or greater than half of all of the renewables on the earth now?

DF: Greater than half.

MB: It’s simply insane. Having simply tossed apart the three gigawatts per 30 provinces of floating photo voltaic, a mere 900 gigawatts of photo voltaic as a rounding error factor, let’s discuss storage and there’s a number of classes of storage as nicely. It’s all huge and it’s altering quickly. What number of classes are we going to speak about for storage?

DF: I’m not going to get so into the weeds on this one. You bought your huge ones, you bought your most dependable and your traditional, your mechanical pump storage. Pumped hydropower storage is quietly large in China. A lot of the storage capability in China continues to be pumped hydropower storage. For fairly some time to return, a lot of the capability will likely be pumped hydropower storage. It’s simply very giant. I preserve considering that certainly they should have exhausted the entire applicable geographies to construct extra of it. They preserve saying no, we now have discovered extra locations to construct pumped hydropower storage. Each province, however particularly the renewables, heavy provinces have main construct plans for storage.

If they’ve any trace of appropriate geography for pumped hydro, they’re going to construct it or they’re constructing it already. Your industrialized sort of inhabitants dense coastal provinces battle to search out locations, in fact, however they’re those which have constructed all that rooftop photo voltaic, those who’ve that nasty duck curve happening in the midst of the day. They might love to have the ability to determine the place to place a number of extra pumped hydropower amenities as you progress into the center of the nation and out west the place you see extra mountains, we’re seeing extra variation of terrain. You’ll see of their provincial degree 5 12 months plans often you’ll see various pumped hydro energy storage. Past that, batteries.

MB: Properly, let’s simply speak numbers as a result of I really like pumped hydro. It’s one in all my different fond applied sciences. The numbers I are likely to reference are that China has about 365 gigawatts of energy capability of pumped hydro in operation, in building or in plan. One of many issues I all the time say about pumped hydro is as a result of it separates energy from vitality, the vitality is often much more multiples than it’s for battery stuff. I’ve been utilizing 8 to 12 terawatt hours of vitality storage in these 365 gigawatts of energy capability.

Ultimately China will in all probability have extra battery energy capability however I doubt it’s ever going to have 12 terawatt hours of battery vitality storage. That’s simply the sheer scale of it. As soon as once more that is China. It’s obtained vastly extra pumped hydro in operation than anyone else and it’s obtained vastly extra in building and plan. The remainder of the world must be taking a look at its pumped hydro stuff and saying let’s do extra of that and there’s locations to place it and stuff like that.

The Australian Nationwide College did a GIS examine beneath Matt Shares a number of years in the past. They seemed for locations with a minimum of 400 meters of vertical peak that have been inside 3 kilometers, that have been near transmission, that had room for a high and backside reservoir for closed loop off river pumped hydro and weren’t unprotected. They discovered 100 occasions the vitality capability as your complete world wants for all storage.

DF: I’ve seen that examine and I’ve gone by way of the GIS sort of platform that they offered. I did discover that various their recognized websites are like in the midst of the Himalayas or sure locations the place it’s really actually not possible to construct. I did observe that fairly a number of locations are in truth the place it appears prefer it is perhaps constructed, there have been fairly a number of that seemed like they have been constructed on ski hills. That is perhaps upsetting for some winter sports activities followers.

MB: The best way I all the time put it’s two issues. An infinite variety of the websites, particularly in North America are outdated coal crops and outdated coal mines websites. These, and so they have individuals who know the way to do stuff with rock. The second is that if only one% of them are viable for different causes, that’s nonetheless all that we’d like. I’m simply questioning by the best way, China Mild and Energy (CLP) in Hong Kong. I spoke to them a number of years in the past and their pumped hydro facility is about 25 gigawatt hours in Guangdong province on the mainland. I’m wondering if the Pearl River Delta cities are similar to, can we get that?

DF: You understand, I’m undecided if they’re usually utilizing that facility simply to produce energy to Hong Kong or in the event that they’re simply being profitable from promoting energy within the mainland. On that one, they is perhaps doing each as a result of they’ve each a mandate to produce energy to Hong Kong and so they’re a commercially minded firm that may generate income on their initiatives in, in different jurisdictions. They may very well be doing both with that. I feel they’re doing fairly nicely with that.

MB: It’s been lights out for a decade now. It simply sits there and operates. Okay, in order that’s pumped hydro. Subsequent class.

DF: Battery storage. Non hydro to be extra exact, which is 97% lithium ion batteries. Earlier within the dialog I mentioned that the good majority of Chinese language storage is hydro by way of put in capability. Truly this 12 months that simply grew to become not true. I used to be pulling up the numbers to verify battery storage really simply handed hydro this 12 months by way of put in capability. Simply previous pumped hydro. Not by way of vitality, simply by way of the put in nameplate capability. That’s a really attention-grabbing quantity to have appeared. The overwhelming majority of that’s lithium ion batteries. And lithium batteries are tremendous versatile.They will do loads various things.

Within the case of Chinese language vitality sector batteries, they get their income from three completely different channels. You might have your vitality arbitrage world. Function your battery facility by shopping for energy when it, charging the batteries when it’s low cost and discharging when energy is increased. That is potential in provinces which have a spot market. You possibly can function your batteries like that. You will get cash in your ancillary companies market which is load following or flexibility help on your renewables, stuff like that. Batteries can even earn a capability cost in lots of provinces. Then really the most important driver is as a result of there’s a regulatory mandate for brand new renewables amenities to incorporate batteries for storage.

Based mostly on the province it should have between 5 and 20% of the renewable amenities’ nameplate capability have to be coated by batteries for both two or 4 hours. They don’t must construct it themselves. You probably have a ten megawatt photo voltaic farm and your requirement is 20% for 2 hours, okay, so now we now have to arrange two occasions two hours. So 4 megawatt hours of batteries have to be ready for our facility. You don’t must construct it your self, you possibly can lease it from the battery farm down the highway. You might have these unbiased third celebration battery operators who construct amenities near the place the renewables are getting constructed in order that they will lease out their capability to the renewables homeowners. These are going to be your three most important drivers.

For the second, renewables technology is simply simply attending to the penetration degree in some provinces the place batteries develop into actually vital to start out smoothing out a few of these imbalances. For a number of years this requirement to construct batteries has been in place with no actually sturdy enterprise case for them that the batteries weren’t wanted but. It was simply including to capex, it was simply making the initiatives costlier. You couldn’t even generate income again but. Now as you see energy markets rising, you see spot markets, you see Shandong has a duck curve in its spot market, similar to California does.

Then you possibly can see batteries shifting that daytime surplus after which slowly canceling out a few of that night peak, smoothing out the night peak by shifting a few of that surplus to the night with batteries. You possibly can see the necessity for the batteries arising lastly. It now appears prefer it was fairly good foresight three or 4 years in the past to mandate the batteries as a result of in the event that they’re solely beginning to be constructed now, we’d must cope with that duck curve for a lot of extra years as an alternative of only a 12 months or two. That’s the massive driver of batteries and that’s the opposite main vitality storage.

There’s all these emergent issues, compressed pressed air and flywheel and there’s a few prototypes and a few demonstration initiatives right here or there. They may have very area of interest functions, however pump storage and batteries, these are two.

MB: Let’s discuss batteries as a result of they simply had the public sale for LFP, lithium iron phosphate battery, vitality storage methods. That they had an public sale for 16 gigawatt hours of batteries. That they had 78 candidates bid. Throughout the 78, the typical bid worth for 20 12 months upkeep contracts and operation contracts for full battery vitality storage methods — thermal administration, battery administration methods, vitality administration methods — was $66 US per kilowatt hour. Stunningly low costs. Stunningly low. It simply modifications the economics.

One in every of my engagements this 12 months was with a inexperienced infrastructure fund. The query they’d was we now have the potential to purchase into an current pumped hydro facility, however are batteries simply going to get so low cost that it’s not going to be value it?

DF: Properly, they serve completely different functions usually. Batteries clear up your multi minute to multi hour issues and your pumped hydra solves your multi day to multi week issues. In case your batteries get so low cost which you can begin utilizing them in a multi week method, possibly pumped hydro loses its attractiveness. That being mentioned, the minerals publicity on pumped hydro is possibly somewhat bit much less regarding. Can we ultimately run into some form of constraints on what number of batteries we are able to really deploy? How a lot lithium prices? Lithium is fairly widespread, however how a lot we are able to really produce, how a lot does it value to supply? Possibly these develop into the boundaries and we’re nonetheless comfortable to have the pumped hydro.

MB: It’s going to be attention-grabbing to see however the storage downside is solved from my perspective. Okay, in order that’s the classes.

On the finish of those discussions, I all the time prefer to say it’s an open ended factor. Something we didn’t cowl, something you assume can be attention-grabbing, one thing that’s pertinent and related for the audiences. Take it away. What do you need to share?

DF: I’ve somewhat little bit of a philosophical query for the viewers. China’s been driving ahead a lot, pushing the envelope ahead a lot on photo voltaic and wind and batteries and all these completely different clear techs and even issues like coal effectivity. They’re doing all of those due to sure motivations. Among the motivations I feel are fairly clear. We will all agree that China has a powerful motivation to fight air pollution. Air pollution was a serious difficulty and it is smart that air pollution is likely one of the issues that you simply’re making an attempt to battle. Let’s imagine China’s focused on rising vitality safety and self sufficiency. Let’s imagine China desires to have a extra aggressive clear tech trade which is an effective financial pillar for the economic system, particularly when actual property is doing poorly. Actual property is dropping however inexperienced infrastructure is rising.

These are all sturdy motivations for China to do clear tech and do it enormous, do it very nicely. Notably, one factor you’ll discover lots of people don’t assume is essentially a powerful motivation is the noble pursuit of decarbonizing, of lowering carbon emissions as a result of it’s the great factor for humanity. Possibly it should say issues like that in coverage paperwork, will say that we have to fight world warming and local weather change. However broadly, I get the impression that within the trade right here in China that individuals consider the stuff I discussed at the start are the stronger motivators and decarbonization is simply sort of an excellent incidental final result. That being mentioned, it’s a good incidental final result.

So my philosophical query is does it matter what the motivations are? Ought to your motivations be noble or ought to your motivations be self serving within the pursuit of what’s ultimately an enormous development in clear tech? Maybe the extra incisive query right here is it potential that these sort of self serving and even egocentric inward trying motivations are extra compelling, are literally stronger motivations to get us the place we need to go? And that noble altruistic motivations about decarbonization are all nicely and good, however they’re really not sturdy sufficient to get us to the place we need to be. That’s my final thought for the pod.

MB: Wonderful. This has been Redefining Power Tech. I’m your host, Michael Bernard. My visitor in the present day has been David Fishman, senior supervisor on the Lantau Group and one of many world’s main specialists on what’s taking place in China with electrical technology. David, thanks a lot for becoming a member of me in the present day.

DF: Thanks a lot for having me.