Goldwind Views

Every individual today is making efforts to improve quality of life. And in this effort, energy transformation is likely to help us achieve a better life in the shortest possible time.

On March 22, Wu Gang, Chairman of Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., Ltd. (Goldwind), delivered a keynote speech of “Future Energy and Better Life” at the 2018 Great Wall World Renewable Energy Forum (GWREF2018) held in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, China.

• Energy transformation is an extremely urgent task with a long way to go

As the world’s largest energy consumer, China is speeding up efforts and making long-term plans to alter its existing economic growth model featuring huge energy consumption.

As China’s economy continues to grow and its urbanization efforts ramp up, it is expected that the per capita energy consumption in China may see a further rise. Despite the fact that China has moved ahead with energy transformation, it brooks no delay for the country to raise the proportion of renewable energy and accelerate the transformation of energy.

• Smart energy is an “enabler” of smart industrial park

“We aim to realize the vision of smart cities to create a smarter and better life for people by building a number of smart industrial parks, which are livable with abundant employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. And these parks should be based on and driven by smart energy and smart water platforms.”

Goldwind has begun exploring and building smart industrial parks since 2010. A 2.5MW wind turbine has been set up at Goldwind’s headquarters. In the meantime, a 500kW solar photovoltaic panel has been installed on the top of the smart energy building, equipped with energy storage, ground source heat pump and chilled water storage system.

“Currently, 50% of the electricity used in the park is generated by renewable energy. In doing so, Goldwind hopes to explore viable ways for the whole society to use more of renewable energy.”

Wu Gang noted that smart microgrid projects, as exemplified by the one launched in Beijing Yizhuang industrial park, may represent the way into the future. “For the sake of the whole industrial park, we make sure that each kWh of electricity is consumed within its shortest radius to reduce power transmission loss and lower economic cost, and the load and power supply are efficiently integrated via the smart microgrid to greatly improve the operational efficiency of the system.”

• Digital transformation boosts competitiveness of renewable energy

Wu Gang believes that to raise the proportion of renewable energy, it is essential to reduce economic cost and improve its market competitiveness.

The National Energy Administration has set a strategic goal of realising the “same price for wind and thermal power” by 2020. In response to the goal, Goldwind has started its efforts to upgrade, transform and optimize the full life cycle of wind power projects by applying technologies such as IoT, big data and AI, and maximize ROI by improving wind resource assessment, planning and design, benefit assessment, wind farm construction, operation and maintenance, integration of industry and finance, etc.

“In the context of digital transformation, remarkable results have been achieved in the operation of wind power assets with substantially increased generating efficiency, an over 50% reduction of operators per unit capacity, a lower fault frequency and a 30% decline in operational and maintenance costs.”

Wu Gang added, “We have also developed a digital platform with our partners in the industry to connect the load, power supply and power grid, and renovate the system by applying technologies such as IoT, big data and AI. On this digital platform, we can track changes in the load and power supply in real time and provide power services for customers based on the changing load demand. In this way, we can greatly cut down our generating costs both in load and power supply, and significantly increase the power grid distribution efficiency. We hope that the development and application of these technologies will help accelerate Zhangjiakou’s effort to develop a renewable energy demonstration area.”

• A green industrial chain serves a green Winter Olympics

“For China, Beijing and Zhangjiakou, 2022 will be a year worth looking forward to. This is the year when the Winter Olympics will be hosted by China for the first time. Delivering a cleaner, greener and lower-carbon Winter Olympics in 2022 will not only include just a few people, several enterprises or local governments alone, but the whole society to adhere to and practice the green concept,” Wu Gang said.

In the past few years, Goldwind has been committed to developing a green industrial chain for the wind power industry by applying green methods to various upstream and downstream links, from design, procurement and manufacturing to logistics, sales, consumption and recycling. “Such a kind of valuable experience sharing will help Zhangjiakou better serve the green Olympics.”

Towards the end of his speech, Wu Gang called upon all guests to join the effort, “Thank you for having me at the GWREF. I hope that more colleagues and partners will join us in our effort to build a renewable energy demonstration area for Zhangjiakou, deliver a greener Winter Olympics in 2022, contribute to China’s energy transformation, and most importantly, create a better life for everyone.”