Vestas secures more contracts
The Danish wind farm equipment manufacturer Vestas has been awarded two contracts representing a total of 187 megawatts (MW) of capacity. The contract covers 220 of the company's V52-850 wind turbines, all of which are scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2007 and for commissioning in late 2007 or early 2008. The smaller order is for 68 of the 0.85-MW units and was placed by the Yilan Longyuan Wind Power Company. The investor is a subsidiary of the Longyuan Electric Power, one of the country's largest wind power developers and a subsidiary of the China Guodian Group, one of the five state-owned generation holding companies carved out of the State Power Corporation in late 2002.
The 57.8-MW project will be located at Yilan in Heilongjiang province. Longyuan Electric Power already owns a 47-MW wind farm project at Daqingshan near Yichun in the same province.
The two-phase Daqingshan project also involves Vestas equipment, with the 16.15-MW first phase comprising nineteen 0.85-MW Vestas turbines ordered in February 2005 and installed in December 2005. The 30.6-MW second phase comprises 36 turbines supplied by Spain's Gamesa Eolica under a contract signed in November 2005.
Yilan, the site for the new Longyuan Electric project, has been identified as a site for wind farm projects for some time. In 2005 the Heilongjiang province-backed Huafu Electric Power Investment Company sought Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) accreditation for a 49.5-MW wind farm project at Yilan.
The second and larger contract awarded to Vestas covers 152 wind turbine units and was placed by the rapidly-growing Datang Chifeng Saihanba Wind Power Company. The company had previously and separately contracted with Vestas for the supply of 164 turbines in March 2006.
Datang Chifeng Saihanba Wind Power was formed in 2006 to develop wind farm projects in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. The main investor is a subsidiary of the China Datang Group, another of the five state-owned generation holding companies carved out of the State Power Corporation in late 2002.
The project company also includes the South Korean state-controlled power utility Korea Electric Power Corporation. In late 2006 Korea Electric Power said in a submission to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it owned a 40% interest in the Chifeng New Energy Company.
Datang Chifeng Saihanba Wind Power and its predecessor in the Datang Group has developed a large number of wind farm projects in the Chifeng area of Inner Mongolia. The company's first project was the 30.6-MW Saihanba West wind farm project
The Saihanba West project was commissioned from late 2005 and comprises 36 Vestas turbines. The project sought CDM approval in 2006 with the purchaser of the emission rights, if approved, to be Carbon Resource Management.
The company is seeking CDM approval for several of its other wind farm projects, with the purchaser of the emission rights, if the projects secure approval, also set to be Carbon Resource Management. The projects include the Saihanba East and Saihanba North projects at Zhirui, both of which have 45.05 MW of capacity.
The Saihanba East project began operation in November 2006 at a cost of Yuan 477 million ($61.1 million). Output is projected at 110.6 GWh a year with the power sales tariff said to have been approved at Yuan 550/MWh ($70.5/MWh). Saihanba North will be broadly similar in terms of size, cost, output and tariff.
Datang Chifeng Saihanba Wind Power is also developing the Dongshan and Bolike projects, both of which involve 49.3 MW of capacity. Construction of the Dongshan project began in April 2006 with output projected at 123 GWh a year, while the Bolike wind farm project at Xiahaba is projected to produce 122.85 GWh a year on its entry into operation from late 2007.
The two Chinese orders came less than a month after Vestas was awarded an order for 112 larger-scale wind turbines from Japan's Toyota Tsusho Corporation. The 81 V80-2.0 MW and 31 V90-3.0 MW wind turbines will be delivered and installed at nine different wind projects in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
Meanwhile in a separate wind power development the official Xinhua News Agency has said that Shanghai plans to spend Yuan 800 million ($103 million) on the construction of a wind plant at a former landfill site near the East China Sea. The plant will be developed by the Shanghai Huagang Wind Power Generation Company, a joint venture between the Shanghai Environment Group and the Shanghai Huadian Electric Power Development Company.
The first phase of the project will cost Yuan 200 million and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2007. It will comprise fifteen 1.5-MW wind turbines that are projected to produce an average of 46.96 GWh a year.
Shanghai plans to have 300 MW of installed wind capacity by 2010, sufficient to meet about 2% of the city's electricity needs.