December 03, 2008

Shanghai to begin construction of its first offshore wind farm

Interfax China reported that Shanghai will begin construction of its first offshore wind farm this month. An official with Shanghai Green Environmental Protection Energy Company Limited who wished to remain anonymous said "We will run behind schedule if we don't begin construction this month. The official said the feed-in tariff for the project has not yet been decided by the government.

Mr Hu Chuanyi a senior engineer with Shanghai Wind Power Company Limited told Interfax that the feed in tariff of Shanghai's Nanhui wind farm stands at about CNY 0.75 per kilowatt hour. He said the Shanghai government is the only local government in China to encourage companies and individuals to pay extra fees to buy "green electricity", or electricity generated by renewable energy projects.

Mr Hu said that some local companies, including Baosteel have purchased the green electricity. According to the Web site of Shanghai's Green Electricity Scheme, government agencies, companies and individuals in the municipality have so far purchased about 8,700 megawatt hours of green electricity.

Mr Hu said that the green electricity scheme has provided some support to Shanghai's renewable energy development, but it is difficult to promote the scheme in China, since there is not much awareness among Chinese companies about the need for environmental protection.