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Wind power and nuclear electricity production in China, India, Brazil and South Africa (BICS) up to 2015

Bernard CHABOT, March 10, 2016 Bernard_Chabot@yahoo.fr

1) Wind power development in the four BICS countries in 2015

Table 1 and Figure 1 shows that according to the GWEC data [1], the BICS countries represented near 58 % of the 63 GW of new wind power installed in 2015 in the world, of which more than 48 % in China.

Table 1: wind power development in 2015 in the world. Source of data: GWEC

Figure 1: New wind power in the world in 2015

2015 MW % Cum. %

China 30 500 48,4%

Brazil 2 754 4,4% 57,7%

India 2 623 4,2%

South Africa 483 0,8%

USA 8 598 13,6% 71,3%

Germany 6 013 9,5% 80,9%

Canada 1 506 2,4% 83,3%

Poland 1 266 2,0% 85,3%

France 1 073 1,7% 87,0%

UK 975 1,5% 88,5%

Turkey 956 1,5% 90,1%

Mexico 714 1,1% 91,2%

Sweden 615 1,0% 92,2%

Netherlands 586 0,9% 93,1%

ROW 4 351 6,9% 100,0%

World 63 013 100% 100%

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2) History of the development of wind power in the four BICS countries

Table 2 and Figure 2 shows the 2000-2015 wind power development in the four BICS countries and in the world. BICS’s share of the world wind power capacity increased from less than 10 % before 2006 to near 42 % in 2015, of which one third from China alone. BICS total was multiplied by a factor of 20 in the 9 years from 2006 to 2015.

Table 2: 2000-2015 wind power development in GW at the end of the year

Figure 2: wind power development in the four BICS countries

GW end

of yearChina India Brazil

South

Africa

Total

BICSWorld % China

% other

BICS% BICS

2015 145,1 25,1 8,71 1,05 180,0 432,4 33,6% 8,1% 41,6%

2014 114,6 22,5 5,96 0,57 143,6 369,7 31,0% 7,9% 38,9%

2013 91,41 20,15 3,47 0,01 115,0 318,5 28,7% 7,4% 36,1%

2012 75,32 18,42 2,51 96,3 282,8 26,6% 7,4% 34,0%

2011 62,36 16,08 1,43 79,9 238,1 26,2% 7,4% 33,5%

2010 44,73 13,06 0,93 58,7 198,0 22,6% 7,1% 29,7%

2009 25,81 10,93 0,61 37,4 159,0 16,2% 7,3% 23,5%

2008 12,10 9,66 0,35 22,1 120,7 10,0% 8,3% 18,3%

2007 5,91 7,85 0,25 14,0 93,9 6,3% 8,6% 14,9%

2006 2,60 6,27 0,10 9,0 74,0 3,5% 8,6% 12,1%

2005 1,26 4,43 5,7 59,1 2,1% 7,5% 9,6%

2004 0,76 3,00 3,8 47,6 1,6% 6,3% 7,9%

2003 0,57 2,13 2,7 39,4 1,4% 5,4% 6,8%

2002 0,47 1,70 2,2 31,1 1,5% 5,5% 7,0%

2001 0,40 1,46 1,9 23,9 1,7% 6,1% 7,8%

2000 0,35 1,22 1,6 17,4 2,0% 7,0% 9,0%

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Figure 3: shares of the world wind power capacity at the end of the year

3) Wind energy production in the four BRICS countries and comparison with nuclear Figure 4 shows that since 2013, wind power is delivering more TWh in the four BICS countries than nuclear, with 257 TWh in 2015 compared to 219 for nuclear.

Figure 4; wind and nuclear annual production in the four BICS countries

4) China: from Chinese sources [2], [3] and from data from the IAEA PRIS data base, wind power production is higher

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than nuclear since 2012, with 194 TWh in 2015 (ahead of the 190 TWh in USA in the same year) compared to 158 net TWh for nuclear.

Figure 5: wind and nuclear net production in China.

The very fast rise of wind power production in China (mainly onshore as offshore wind was only 1 GW in China at the end of 2015) is mainly due to the effectiveness of the onshore wind power FITs implemented within the Chinese renewable energy law passed in 2009. Table 3 shows the present and short term FITs values that are defined for four geographical zones with different quality of wind resource, category I being the windier zone.

Table 3: onshore wind power FITs in China in CNY/kWh on 20 years. Source: [2]. 1 CNY = 0.1388 EUR

Another positive trend for onshore wind power production in China is that new models of wind turbines with high specific area ratio Su (larger than 4 or 5 m2/kW) and delivering high average annual capacity factors including in medium and low areas are more and more used with relevant benefits [4].

5) India:

Wind power production is also higher than net nuclear production since 2013 in India. The 2015 wind production around 42 TWh is an author’s estimate from a conservative capacity factor and from 25.1 GW installed at the end of 2015 according to GWEC [1].

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Figure 6: wind and nuclear net production in India

6) Brazil: From preliminary data and estimate, wind power production around 18 TWh in 2015 was higher than the gross nuclear production of less than 15 TWh. This trend will continue, as the Brazil wind market is now among the 5 larger wind markets in the world and as there are few opportunities to develop new nuclear power in Brazil.

Figure 6: wind and nuclear net production in Brazil

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7) South Africa: As wind power development in South Africa is very recent, estimated 2015 wind production of around 2 TWh is still lower than the 11 TWh of nuclear energy delivered in 2015. But the development of wind power will continue to be fast from recent and future transparent call for tenders, compared to a potential development of nuclear power still at very preliminary stage and from not disclosed discussions with international consortiums.

8) Some conclusions:

Even with an early start, nuclear power production was already surpassed in 2015 by wind power production in China, India, Brazil and globally in the four BICS countries.

Delays required deciding to finance and to build tentative new nuclear power plants and the much easier, transparent, cost effective and faster onshore wind power development [5], [6] will also lead to a wind power production larger than from nuclear in a few years in South Africa.

As in those four large countries and economies, wind power will remain easier and less costly to develop than nuclear energy in small and intermediate developing and emerging countries.

Those tendencies and opportunities will be reinforced by the decreases in wind power initial investment cost ratio and kWh costs and by the large increases in capacity factors of new onshore wind farms built with the new models of wind turbines of the emerging “Silent Wind Power Revolution” delivering high and very high capacity factors including in light wind speeds areas [7]. As demonstrated in China since 2009, shifting from calls for tenders to fair and efficient onshore wind FITs could accelerate this wind power development in other countries, especially if those FITs systems give an incentive to use those new models of wind turbines with high specific area ratios and related high capacity factors as the one described in reference [7].

This fast development of clean and affordable onshore wind power production in developing and emerging countries will contribute to lower CO2 emissions resulting from the too high amount of fossil fuels burnt in the world for power production [6], in order to comply with the Paris agreement issued at the COP21 in December 2015 and aiming to limit the future global warming at less than + 2°C in 2100 compared to pre-industrial level.

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References:

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[1] “GLOBAL WIND STATISTICS 2015”, GWEC, March 2016. Downloadable at: http://www.gwec.net/

[2] “Grid Operation Businesses in China and the Integration of RES-electricity”, Shouhe Zhao, State Grid Corporation of China, presentation at the 2016 JREF’s RE vision 2016 conference, downloadable at: www.jref.or.jp/en/activities/events_20160309.php

[3] “Nuclear Power in China”, updated March 2016: http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx

[4] ”China at the Forefront of the “Silent Wind Power Revolution”, Bernard Chabot, downloadable at: www.renewablesinternational.net/chinas-silent-wind-revolution/150/435/78319/

[5] « Analysis of nuclear market and electricity production up to 2014 and 2040 with some strategic comparisons with renewables », Bernard Chabot, downloadable at: www.renewablesinternational.net/nuclear-and-renewables-past-present-and-future/150/537/86653/ [6] « Analysis of the Global Electricity Production up to 2014 With a Focus on the Contribution From Renewables and on CO2 Emissions», Bernard Chabot, downloadable at: www.renewablesinternational.net/global-electricity-overview-for-2014/150/537/88299/

[7] “Analysis of the “Silent Wind Power Revolution”, and some proposals to benefit from it within a large scale deployment scenario”, Bernard Chabot, WWEA Quarterly Bulletin, Issue 2, June 2014. Downloadable at: http://www.wwindea.org/

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