Climate Change and Renewable Energy News and Discussion

Another huge green H2 project taking place in Inner Mongolia
水木明拓氢能源科技有限公司 is investin 40B RMB to build a 300kt Green Hydrogen 1.2mt green ammonia. 1.1mt hydrogen from "还原铁", auxiliary projects and 5 GW of wind/solar power generation

phase 1 will cost 12B RMB with 150,000 m3 of recycled water electrolysis H2 production & 1800t/day of green synthetic ammonia supported by 1.5GW of wind power. To be ready for production by 2024.

1800t/day of NH3 -> 657kt/year. So huge project. The domestic electrolysis production will have to ramp up quickly.

The great thing about green H2 is you don't have to worry about curtailment or ESS or backup power or building high transmission lines. you can build these mega wind farms in the middle of nowhere and just store up the ammonia and transport is use large trucks and/or rail.

tphuang said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Sany after winning almost 1/4 of the Jilin green H2 project with 8 electrolyzers have now signed partnership agreement to work with Huaneng, one of the largest energy companies in China, on hydrogen projects including electrolyzers, fuel station & fuel cell technology.

Click to expand...

actually, Huaneng has been pretty active

It also signed partnership with Dongfang for wind/solar/hydrogen project in Chengdu

It also signed partnership with Sungrow Power for hydrogen tech

So Huaneng is another big energy company in China invested in building green hydrogen production and mega projects. there is also sinopec, petrochina, SPIC, China energy, CEEC

CEEC also signed agreement with Korean company SK E&S for cooperation on hydrogen technology.
plenty of places to export technology and production to

Japan just bought its first low carbon ammonia from Aramco today. There is no way Aramco can compete with China's green Aramco production when we really get into it. The market is huge and both Korea/Japan have not that much available space for renewable power & hydrogen production. They will depend on China for hydrogen import

and they are putting a lot of effort into developing transportation of hydrogen. Doping it in steel seems like something they are trying

China's coal usage would peak sooner rather than later and probably a few years before 2030.

New Phase of Key China Renewables Push Extends Beyond Deserts
(Bloomberg) -- China announced a third round of solar and wind energy projects that’ll form part of President Xi Jinping’s vision of boosting the world’s largest renewable power fleet with vast developments across inland deserts and other unpopulated areas.

A 850-megawatt solar power project near the coast in Binzhou, Shandong, is among the new developments, and is scheduled to begin generating clean electricity next year, according to a local media report.

The next batch of installations will include locations in former oil and gas fields or coal mining areas, adding to sites already under construction in areas like Inner Mongolia, industry outlets reported previously.

Read more: China Offers More Detail on Xi’s Desert Clean Power Mega-Hub

China aims to build about 455 gigawatts of wind and solar power largely in deserted areas, and researchers previously forecast that almost half will be installed before 2025. Authorities said in November that construction is underway on the initial group of projects, while preparations and planning are being carried out for the second batch.

The nation added a record 87.4 gigawatts of solar power in 2022, and is set to install as much as 120 gigawatts more this year, in part as a result of the push to deliver desert projects. Solar topped hydro at the end of last month to become the country’s largest source of renewable power capacity.

China continues to lead the world in the number of nuclear power units under construction, according to a blue book issued by the China Nuclear Energy Association. The country has 24 nuclear power units under construction with a total installed capacity of 26.81 million kWs.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Despite Efforts to Stem It​

China-controlled solar-panel makers are expected to sell more in the U.S. this year as overall panel sales surge, increasing their market share to 45%, nearly 17 gigawatts, up from 42% last year.

Chinese solar-panel manufacturers have been able to keep their leading position in the U.S. because they have been fast to change business models, move locations and take other steps to ensure their sales can continue, said Finlay Colville, PV Tech’s head of research.

Click to expand...

“The Chinese companies that have been supplying the global industry have typically been ahead of any policy change and have always had their plan B ready,” Mr. Colville said. “They’ve just been very skillful at working around trade issues.”

Click to expand...

“The capital is there in China, and they know how to deploy new manufacturing very quickly.”

Click to expand...

I wrote about Longi Solar's successes here and they are not the only successful Chinese story in renewable industry. Jinko solar & Sany are in there too. Com'on 45% of world's solar wafer production is crazily dominant for 1 company.


Aside from Huawei, BYD & CATL, there are many other hugely impressive and successful Chinese businesses, especially in the new energy space

offshore solar farms will be popping up around Shandong
This is the next step of the green movement. Collecting free energy from sea areas around China.

China's technology to capture energy cheaply from water resources will be the envy of global south in the future.

tphuang said:

I wrote about Longi Solar's successes here and they are not the only successful Chinese story in renewable industry. Jinko solar & Sany are in there too. Com'on 45% of world's solar wafer production is crazily dominant for 1 company.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1652845644648677378

Aside from Huawei, BYD & CATL, there are many other hugely impressive and successful Chinese businesses, especially in the new energy space

Click to expand...

Huawei is one of the biggest solar inverter manufacturer. They're growing to be a gigantic diversified conglomerate, not just telecom but in everything from software to heavy electrical engineering like automotive and electrical grid.

Mingyang's first offshore wind/hydrogen/marine ranch project is in installation stage. See the picture in my tweet where the wind farm project is at. Quite a bit off shore.

Basically, there are quite a bit of advantages in having installations this far off
- not taking any precious immediate coastal area
- can be installed in areas with greater wind potential

The are also disadvantages
- having higher installation costs due to longer submarine cable and more expensive equipments to allow turbines to float
- great technical challenge

However, there are some real upsides. Compare offshore solar from yesterday's Shandong example to today's offshore wind example
Offshore solar
1.3GW -> 1.652 TWh/yr -> 1270 hr/yr out of 8760 hr/yr -> 14.5% utilization
Offshore wind
1GW -> 3.6 TWh/yr -> 3600 hr/yr out of 8760 hr/yr -> 41.1% utilization

so utilization on wind farm is so much higher 1 GW of offshore wind generates more than 2x the electricity of 1.3GW solar farm

Now if compare this to Q1 utilizations
90 days -> 2160 hours
Hydro 544 hr -> 25.2% utilization
Thermal 1097 hr -> 50.8% utilization
Nuclear 1864 hr -> 86.3% utilization
Wind 615 hr -> 28.5% utilization
Solar 303 hr -> 14.0% utiliztion

So for solar, 14 to 15% is probably the best you do with current technology.
On the other hand, offshore wind utilization is so much higher than overall wind (which is mostly onshore). I've read somewhere that offshore wind can go as high as 49% utilization, which would make it level with Thermal plants (they will have lower utilization due to role as backup power). This is why despite having 2x the upfront cost, offshore wind will increasingly become more economical vs onshore

Overall, I think it's important to point out the economic benefits. Aside from powering fish farm & generating electricity for coastal areas, green hydrogen directly generated using seawater also achieve very low cost. The technology used here will be treasured all across the world. You can generate cheap energy, easily transported as ammonia or methanol to places that need them.

And Chinese industries will develop know how of how to make these installations and become very proficient at installing them. This will allow them to carry out offshore wind projects everywhere

alright, I posted an update
I saw this and was able to have another data point for offshore wind utilization calculation
And this one just shows the specialized field of offshore wind service/maintenance ships

And now CRRC has gotten in on the offshore rush, but it's turbines are just 8.5MW

I think as China gets really good at this, countries will all be coming to China and look for its expertise in these mega projects. China will have all the equipment and expertise needed to carry out offshore wind projects of this size