Love wind, fear wind: growing pains of China's wind power industry

In a vast prairie to the north of Hohhot, the capital city of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, hundreds of wind turbines stand like a vast, unbroken forest.

The turbines have created both opportunities and problems for the region's power companies.

"I long for wind, but I also fear wind," says Su Changyou, a manager of a wind farm located in Inner Mongolia's Siziwang Banner (County).

"During high winds, my wind turbines will rotate in full gear, which means higher profits. But sometimes, my telephone rings with calls from power grid controllers ordering us to limit our power generation," says Su.

Ever since Su's wind farm was connected to China's power grid last May, only about 60 percent of the farm's turbines have been in operation. The rest of the turbines must remain idle to avoid overloading the grid.

Qi Laisheng, general manager of the Inner Mongolia subsidiary of Longyuan Power, China's largest wind farm operator, says "these things happen all the time here. About a quarter of the turbines on my wind farm have to remain idle, even on the windiest days."

Grid access has become a nightmare for Inner Mongolia's burgeoning wind power industry. Wind farms in the region have a total installed power capacity of 6.5 gigawatts (GW), the most of any region in China.

China surpassed the United States to become the world's largest producer of wind power at the end of 2010. However, China's wind power industry has been troubled with growing pains.

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