Talk:Gansu Wind Farm

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Untitled

There reads: The entire project may become the world's largest wind power producer when it is fully completed.
Huh, why is that? According to List of largest power stations in the world#Wind, it is almost five times larger than second one, already. So unless the list is missing quite drastically, Gansu is by far the largest even now. 82.141.126.28 (talk) 01:24, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

There reads: This wind farm is similar to Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in terms of capacity.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.27.12.22 (talk) 15:18, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Technical Questions about the Gansu Wind Farm Article

This is a useful article as it stands. It could be greatly enhanced with a few more or corrected details. The annual generation doesn't make sense to me. Shouldn't there be a capacity factor associated with this value? I suspect this value represents the planned annual generation(?). Maybe the wind blows a lot in Gansu? Example 1: Status = Current Nameplate Capacity = 7,965 (7.965 GW) Times Capacity Factor of 35% (x 0.35) = 2.79 GW Annual Generation (x 24 hours x 365 days) = 24,421 GW-h Example Status = Planned Nameplate Capacity = 20,000 MW (20 GW) Times Capacity Factor of 35% (x 0.35) = 7.00 GW Annual Generation (x 24 hours x 365 days) = 61,320 GW-h Either way it is a huge undertaking.

Speaking of huge. How much land area does it use (Current and Planned)? I took a crack at the answer using some maps and came up with about 550 sq.-mi for the "current". Using the same maps I reckoned that something close to 5,000 modern turbines are in place. Working backwards, I reckoned that is about 69 acres / MW using the 35% capacity factor.

Is there a plan for storing some of this electricity or is the "grid" modulated to accommodate it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by PatrickLeary1248 (talk • contribs) 19:21, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

References

Underutilization:

If all of Gansu’s wind turbines were up and running and used to their full capacity, the wind farm would generate enough energy to power a small country. However, currently, Gansu is far from full capacity and the wind farm is producing less than half of its full potential. The two main reasons why this is happening is that Gansu is located far from the major Chinese cities and that there is a lack of demand for wind energy in China.

The Gansu wind farm sits along the Gobi desert where there are extremely high winds. However, this location is about a thousand miles from China’s high density, port cities that would serve as the biggest consumer of this energy. This makes transferring energy from the wind farm to cities difficult and time consuming, which plays a role in the underutilization of the farm. There is also a lack of infrastructure and transmission lines that would allow the energy to flow into the cities. The isolated location and lack of infrastructure has made the Gansu wind farm obsolete.

There is still also a little demand for wind power in China compared to coal. Although China’s central government is actively trying to reduce its emissions and build its clean energy sector, the local governments still push coal on its local industries because it creates more economic output and because the coal is mined locally, as opposed to buying wind energy from far away, which helps local coal companies. It is hard to institute wind energy when the local governments incentivize coal, especially when coal power has been the norm in China for several years.

Misleading argumetns, also in the article: "There is still also little demand for wind power in China compared to coal. ... the local governments still push coal on their local industries because it creates more economic output and because the coal is mined locally, which helps local coal companies". One of the reasons seems to be that the wind farms get (or do not get) higher prices per kWh, so that therefore they are curtailed more often than the coal plants in the same region, even though marginal costs are lower for wind power. Another reason could be different ownerships of coal plants (regional?) and wind power (other regions?). I know too little details to modify artcle, but suggest for it. Meerwind7 (talk) 12:37, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I think one of the reasons during winter months is that coal plants also serve thermal loads for district heating so they cannot be shut down. --Ita140188 (talk) 14:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

The Future of Gansu:

The future success of Gansu will depend on the Chinese government’s input and aid. The government will need to create policies to deter people from using coal and giving subsidies for wind energy. Further, the government will need to green-light infrastructure projects that will allow energy to be transported to the cities. The strong winds of the Gobi desert are an untapped energy source that could be vital to powering China and instituting renewable energy technologies. Some people have proposed creating wind farms closer to the cities in the East, but the wind there is far less powerful and would generate significantly less energy compared to the Gansu wind farm in the Gobi desert.

The Gansu wind farm has enormous potential to be a sustainable source of energy for all of China. The biggest challenges are the transportation of the energy to the main cities. Once the infrastructure and transmission lines are built, Gansu will be one of the largest contributors to Chinese energy.

Title

Gansu Wind Cluster or Gansu Wind Farm Cluster seems more appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meerwind7 (talk • contribs) 12:40, 18 March 2019 (UTC)