News Summary:

• NEA publishes 1H2018 solar power installations
• HHI signs an offshore wind construction & installation contract with 3-Gorges
• Jiangsu power grid load exceeds 100 GW for second consecutive year
• China EV charging infrastructure annual report (2017-2018) published by NEA
• Shanghai Electric terminates acquisition of subsidiary of GCL-Poly

NEA publishes 1H2018 solar power installations

During the first half of this year, 24 GW of new PV capacity was installed. This includes 12GW of centralized PV, a decrease of 30% yr-on-yr, and 12GW of distributed PV, an increase of 72% yr-on-yr. The total installed PV capacity has now reached 154.5GW, about three quarters of which is centralized. (NEA)

In the first half of 2018, newly installed PV capacity in Shandong, Zhejiang, Henan and Jiangsu provinces all above 1GW, and the newly installed distributed photovoltaic installations in the four provinces accounted for more than half of the country.

HHI signs an offshore wind construction & installation contract with 3-Gorges

Huadian Heavy Industries (HHI), a subsidiary of Huadian Group, won the bid for the first batch of foundation construction and installation of 38 wind turbines as well as an offshore high voltage substation for the 3-Gorges Guandong Yangjiang Xishaba 300MW offshore wind project. The contract is worth 1 billion CNY.(Finance Sina)

Source: Yangjiang GOV

Jiangsu power grid load exceeds 100 GW for second consecutive year

On August 8, Jiangsu Power Grid load reached 102.26 GW, breaking last year's record of 102.19GW. From January to July this year, total power consumption in Jiangsu reached 349.5TWh, an increase of 6.78% yr-on-yr. Appoximately 22% of this  power demand was produced from renewable energy sources.(CEC)

China EV charging infrastructure annual report (2017-2018) published by NEA

777,000 electric vehicles were sold in China in 2017, an increase of 53.3% year-on-year, allowing EV market share to reach 2.7%. In 2017, there were 214,000 public charging stations and 232,000 private charging stations. Construction of another 600,000 charging stations is in planning, including 100,000 public and 500,000 private. (NEA)

Highway power charging network

Shanghai Electric terminates acquisition of subsidiary of GCL-Poly

In June this year, Shanghai Electric announced its intention to acquire 51% of Jiangsu Zhongneng, a subsidiary of GCL-Poly (HK3800) focused on high-purity polysilicon production, for 12.7 billion CNY. Shanghai Electric now terminates the acquisition procedure. (Finance Sina)

The acquisition was cancelled due to changes in the photovoltaic situation since the second half of the year. Especially after the “531” PV New Deal, the two sides have different judgments on the trading conditions and the future development prospects of the PV market.

News Summary: 

• Sinovel Wind Power spends $57.5 million on reconciliation with AMSC WINDTEC
• Asia's largest offshore wind farm starts operating
• Gansu publishes its 13th 5 year energy development plan
• SIDRI & INNOSEAsign offshore wind power engineering cooperation MOU
• Datang Nanao Lemen 400MW offshore windfarm has been approved

 
 
Sinovel Wind Power spends $57.5 million on reconciliation with AMSC WINDTEC
Since 2011, AMSC WINDTEC has filed several law suits against Sinovel and its affiliates due to intellectual property issues which arised in their patnership to deploy power electronics for Sinovel wind turbines in China. After 7 years of struggle, it seems that the dispute may have finally come to end, with Sinovel paying $57.5 million to AMSC Windtec's Chinese subsidiary in Suzhou (SinaNews)
 
Sinovel and AMSC started cooperating on wind turbine power electronics in 2005; a few years before Sinovel became the leading Chinese wind turbine OEM. The dispute starting in 2011 significantly affected Sinovel's image worldwide and is suspected to be the key reason for the group's decline in the following years. It is yet unknown what this final settlement may mean for both companies, as Sinovel's turbine sales have almost come to a halt last year, and AMSC's initial claim was initially counted in billion dollars.

 

 
 
Asia's largest offshore wind farm stars operating
The 100th Shanghai Electric 4MW wind turbine of the SPIC Binhai North H2# 400MW offshore wind power project has been connected to the grid, which indicates that the offshore wind power project has successfully completed full-capacity connection operation and has officially become the largest offshore wind farm in Asia.(JSTV)

 

 
This is the same wind farm which had a severe accident at its offshore substation exactly 1 year ago which resulted in one casualty and partial loss of the OSS. It seems however that the accident did not cause significant delays in project constrution as the wind farm was completed according to schedule.
 
 
Gansuprovincepublishes its 13th 5 yearenergy development plan
The province targets installed capacity of 14GW of wind, 9.9GW of PV and 9.5GW of Hydro power by 2020. At the same time, Gansu engages to reduce wind & PV curtailment as well as increase utilization hours. (Gansu GOV)

 
Most provinces have issued their 13th 5 year plan more than a year ago. Gansu was likely slowed down in this process due to challenges with integration of renewables, as average wind curtailment reached 33% in 2017 (NEA)
 

SIDRI & INNOSEA signMOU for cooperation on offshore windengineering
SIDRI (Shanghai Investigation Design & Research Institute), the engineering branch of China Three Gorges Group, and INNOSEA, a subsidiary of London Offshore Consultants delivering offshore wind engineering and design services, signed a MOU for cooperation on offshore wind power. SIDRI earlier purchased Innosea's offshore wind power foundation design and optimization software PREDIN as well as related training services. During the visit, the two sides also had detailed discussion about cooperation on deep sea jacket foundation design and floating wind power. (BJX)

 

Azure International and Innosea have setup a partnership for delivering offshore wind design and engineering services in China, and the cooperation with SIDRI marks one of the first key milestones the consortium has achieved.  China's effort to become a global leader in offshore wind energy creates opportunities for western companies with relevant experience and references to participate. With more than 15 years experience in the Chinese wind sector, Azure is well poised to facilitate and support such partnerships.
 
 
Datang Nanao Lemen 400MW offshore wind farm has been approved
Datang Nanao Lemen 400MW offshore wind project in Guangdong has been approved, with a sea area of 56 square kilometers, a total installed capacity of 400MW, and featuring 57 wind turbines of 7 MW each. The wind farm is expected to provide 1.2 TWh of clean energy per year. (Datang Group)

News Summary: 

• FujianGOV issues list of offshore wind farms
• China's largest grid connected ESS project comes on line
• Large fire at South Korean energy storage power station
• Japan builds first PV power plant from recycled PV modules
• NDRC promotes participation of renewable energy projects in power trading programs

 
 
FujianGOV issues list of offshore wind farms
Fujian GOV released a plan requiring the different government offices across the province to fully support implementation of 228 major projects, including 130 under construction and 98 in development, in order to accelerate the growth of the "marine economy" in the province.
(Fujian GOV)

We have extracted offshore wind projects out of the document as well as summarized key information in the tables below. The list includes 9 offshore wind farms with cumulative capacity of 2.7GW and average CAPEX of 20,800 CNY/kW.
    
 
China's largest grid connected ESS project comes on line
The 20MW/160MWh intelligent energy storage power station of the Feida Group invested by Nandu Power (300068) was successfully connected to the grid. The power station is a key project of the State Grid Jiangsu summer peak shaving plan. The project has an annual energy storage capacity of about 53 million kWh. (ntdaily)

 
According to the State Grid Jiangsu Power Forecast,peak summer consumption in Jiangsu has reached 112 million kW in 2018, an increase of 10% since last year. Now that the Chinese economy is transiting from a secondary to a tertiary economy, while the total consumption growth is predicted to slow down, we can actually expect the growth of peak consumption to accelerate, which drives up the requirements for the scale of the whole energy production and transmission infrastructure but drives the utilization hours down. Energy storage peak shaving projects are one of the solutions to increase the efficiency of the whole system.
 
 
Large fire atSouth Korean energy storage power station
A fire broke out at the energy storage project connected to the Lingyan Wind Power Plant, causing the 706m2 scale battery building and more than 3,500 Li-Ion batteries to burn. The grid scale energy storage project with a capacity of 12MWh was installed in 2015. (Sohu)

 
This news item was found by Azure on several news platform in Chinese language, but has not been reported anywhere else to Azure's knowledge. Azure is investigating the accuracy of this news item, and in the meantime does not guarantee its validity. Fire hazards with Lithium Ion battery is a well know issue and a key concern in the sector, as well as a drive for development of alternative battery technologies.
 
 
Japan builds first PV power plant from recycled PV modules
Japan's NextEnergy&Resources builds a PV power plant using recycled PV panels. The project has an installed capacity of 280.78KW and features five different panel technologies including monocrystalline, polycrystalline, CIS thin film etc. (BJX)
 
By the end of 2017, Chinahad atotalPV capacityof more than 130GWIncluding 50GW newly installedduring 2017.At this pace, recycling PV material should soon become an important topic in the industry.
 
 
NDRC promotes participation of renewable energy projects in power trading programs
According to the new policy, direct power trading mechanisms are now open to medium size end-users which connect to the grid at 10kV or above (versus 35kV in previous versions of the policy) and sources of clean energy such as wind, solar, hydro and nulcear are encouraged to trade directly with large industrials such as coal, steel, nonferrous metals,  cement and glass producers. (NDRC)
 
As Azure had forecasted a few years back, while the direct power trading mechanisms introduced over the past years were intially expected to have a positive impact in helping integrate clean energy, in reality it is more likely that lage coal power plants with stable and controllable production sign up with large industrial producers with flat and predictable consumption. The policy confirms that more work is needed to help clean energy sources be competitive in a deregulated market. 

News Summary:

• Azure Winterwind 2016 presentations now publicly available
• China Sunergy at risk of Nasdaq delisting
• Goldwind has record year with 7GW wind sold
• State Council reviews new urbanization construction policy
• Renewable energy generation target set for 9% by 2020
• China Three Gorges Corporation announces 30MW wind project in Myanmar

 

 
Azure Conference: Sebastian Meyer Delivers Keynote Speech at Winterwind 2016
Sebastian Meyer, Azure’s Director of Research, delivered both a keynote and a panel speech at the Winterwind International Wind Energy Conference in Sweden on February 12th this year. Sebastian’s presentations are available for download here.
 
 
 
Finance: China Sunergy Fails to Meet Nasdaq Continued Listing Standards
China Sunergy (CSUN) announced its receipt of Nasdaq’s notice of failure to meet the Nasdaq continued listing standards. China Sunergy bid price has fallen below $1. If the price does not exceed $1 for 10 consecutive days in the next 180 days, it will be delisted permanently. (PR Newswire EN)
 
China Sunergy stock is down 65% since March 2015, and has had a series of bad press, such as posting its 2014 Q2 results a yearlate. 
 

China Sunergy HQ In Nanjing, Source: PV Magazine
 

News Summary:

• State Grid Purchases Minority Stake in Third Largest Brazilian Energy Generation and Distribution Company
• Shanghai Electric Power Announces Plans to Buy Controlling Stake in Pakistani Utility
• China Three Gorges Corporation & State Grid Bidding on Brazilian Hydropower Company
• Hebei Delegates Offshore Wind Approval Authority to Municipalities
• NDRC & NEA Approve Pilot Projects for 16 Regions
• Hunan Government Reduced Hydropower Sales Price

 
 
 
M&A: State Grid Purchases Minority Stake in Third Largest Brazilian Energy Generation and Distribution Company
State Grid Corporation of China finalized a 23.6% purchase stake, worth $1.8 billion USD, in the Brazilian energy generation and distribution company CPFL Energia. State Grid worked with the holding company Camargo Corrêa S.A. to close the deal. (BJX CN)
 
Chinese companies are expanding their control of international companies to increase revenue streams. The 23.6% minority ownership stake gives State Grid an inroad strategy to Brazil, South America's largest economy and a top transmission and distribution grid market. CPFL Energia owns 13% of the total distribution market share and manage over 1.6 GW of generating capacity. 
 
 
 
M&A: Shanghai Electric Power Announces Plans to Buy Controlling Stake in Pakistani Utility 
Shanghai Electric plans to purchase a 66% stake in Pakistani, K-Electric, a vertically integrated utility of 11,000 employees based out of Karachi. The investment totals $1.6 billion USD and is Shanghai Electric's largest ever investment. (In-En CN)
 
 
 
M&A: China Three Gorges Corporation & State Grid Bidding on Brazilian Hydropower Company
China Three Gorges Corporation and State Grid Corporation are joint bidding on Santo Antônio Energia, the owner and operator of the $7 billion USD, 3.1 GW Santo Antônio Hydroelectric Plant in Western Brazil. The deal may go as high as $3.1 billion USD for a to-be-determined stake. (Deal Street Asia EN)
 
The weakening Brazilian economy is opening up foreign direct investment opportunities for investors, and China is leading the pack with $4 billion USD year to date. The downturn also is scaring away existing investors, such as Duke Energy, which is selling its Latin America energy assets and has invited China Three Gorges, State Grid, andBrookfield Asset Management to purchase its assets.
 
 
 
Wind: Hebei Delegates Offshore Wind Approval Authority to Municipalities
The government of Hebei announced shifting regulatory approval authority from province- to municipality-level for offshore wind farm project reviews and approvals. The authority includes approving offshore wind generators, undersea transmission cables, and mechanical support structures for wind turbines. Presumably, the offshore wind permitting process will be faster now. (BJX CN)
 
Presumably, a change from centralized to local control of offshore wind approval should make things more efficient, however, data and analysis from the2013 Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Report point to a slowdown. Offshore wind projects as of 2013 took around two years to approve. Local governments are less well-equipped to assess wind projects, compared to provincial-level approval processes.