After Guangdong Province launched the first “provincial subsidy” for offshore wind power, Zhejiang Province followed.

Recently, Zhejiang Province’s energy development “14th Five-Year Plan” clearly proposed to actively promote the sustainable development of offshore wind power, accelerate the establishment of provincial financial subsidy, and allocate new projects through a competitive way.

Zhejiang has clearly introduced a subsidy system for offshore wind power

All the new wind power targets in the 14th Five-Year Plan of Zhejiang energy development are concentrated in the offshore wind power.

During the period of “14^th Five-Year Plan”, Zhejiang is planning to add 4.5GW to offshore wind power.

Projects like Jiaxing 1#, Jiaxing 2#, Shengsi 2#, Shengsi 5# and Shengsi 6# will be built.  Several million-kilowatt-hour level offshore wind bases will be built. There will also be the development on deep sea offshore wind power in Xiangshan, Dongtou and Cangnan.

the sustainable development of offshore wind power will be promoted, the government will also accelerate the establishment of a provincial-level financial subsidy system and allocate new projects in through competitive way.

Industry insiders said that the provincial subsidy policy of Zhejiang province is the affirmation of the development prospect of the offshore wind power industry in this province. Compared with other coastal provinces and cities, the cost of offshore wind power in Zhejiang is relatively high, and the subsidy can relieve the pressure on developers to a large extent.

In addition, the industrial mode of “offshore wind power + other industries” is also the new focus for Zhejiang province. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Zhejiang is committed to build a demonstration projects such as offshore wind power “+ Marine energy”, “+ energy storage”, “+ hydrogen production”, “+ Marine pasture” and “+ onshore industrial base”.

Guangdong Marks First Provincial Offshore Wind Power Subsidies

On December 30, 2020, the Energy Bureau of Guangdong Province issued the “Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Orderly Development of Offshore Wind Power and the Sustainable Development of Related Industries in Guangdong Province (Draft for Comments)”.

The document clarifies Guangdong’s offshore wind power subsidy standards after the central subsidy for offshore wind power in 2022 is cancelled.

1. Time limit: the subsidy covers the full capacity grid-connected projects in 2022 and 2023 within the provincial waters, and no subsidies will be provided for projects that are connected to grid from 2024 onwards.
2. Installed capacity: the total installed capacity of the subsidy projects shall not exceed 4.5GW, among which the installed capacity of the subsidy projects in 2022 shall not exceed 2.1GW
3. The subsidy standard: in 2022 and 2023, the subsidy is RMB 1,500 and RMB 1,000 per kilowatt for the full capacity grid-connected projects, which is equivalent to a one-time subsidy for the construction cost.

The introduction of the first “provincial subsidy” for offshore wind power has greatly encouraged the industry. However, industry insiders believes that the subsidy is just the “icing on the cake” for achieving parity. The core competitiveness of the offshore wind power industry still needs to be improved, and it is particularly important to keep improving the technology, expand the scale and reduce costs in all sections of the whole industry chain.

Regarding the provincial subsidies for offshore wind power, except for Guangdong and Zhejiang, other provinces like Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong and Fujian are still not having a clear policy. Industry insiders believe that Jiangsu is relatively mature in the development of offshore wind power, with a large installed capacity and a good financial situation, so Jiangsu is more possible to introduce relevant subsidy systems.

The scale of offshore wind power is expected to exceed 32GW during the 14th Five-Year Plan period

Guangdong and Jiangsu respectively announced plans for the development of 23GW of offshore wind power during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

According to the prediction of professional economic researchers, in the future, Fujian, Shandong and Liaoning provinces will also issue a special plan, with a total capacity of 6-10GW. It is expected that the new installed capacity of offshore wind power for the whole country during the 14^th Five-Year Plan will exceed 32GW, with an annual increase of more than 6GW of offshore wind power installed.

The annual average construction volume may also exceed 6GW in the four years after the withdrawal of the state subsidy from 2022 to 2025.

Jiangsu is the province with the largest offshore wind power development scale.

According to Jiangsu’s 14th Five-Year Plan for Renewable Energy Development, by 2025, Jiangsu will add about 11 million kilowatts of wind power, and about 120 billion yuan of new investment will be made, including about 8 million kilowatts of offshore wind power and about 100 billion yuan of new investment for the offshore wind power. Photovoltaic power generation will increase by about 9 million kilowatts, with an additional investment of about 30 billion yuan. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Jiangsu’s new installed capacity of renewable energy was about 22 million kilowatts, with an additional investment of about 163 billion yuan.

This means that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Jiangsu will have more than 2.2GW of newly installed wind power each year, respectively.

According to relevant data, as of the end of June this year, Jiangsu Province wind power grid capacity reaches 11.1 million kilowatts, which completes the target set by the 13th Five-Year Plan. Of that, the installed capacity of offshore wind power is 4.64 million kilowatts, accounting for 70 percent of the country’s total.

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