As climate change and energy issues are becoming more of a challenge, the offshore wind power industry has ushered in historic development opportunities. Experts predicted that by 2025, China’s new offshore wind power installations are expected to post a compound growth rate of 32 percent from 2020, Securities Times reported.

A giant offshore wind turbine, with the world’s largest per-unit capacity, has recently moved off the production line in East China’s Fujian province, marking a breakthrough in high-end wind turbine manufacturing.

The 16-megawatt wind turbine is equipped with a 146-meter hub, equal to the height of a 50-storied building, and has the world’s longest impeller diameter of 252 meters and the lightest per megawatt weight, according to China Three Gorges Corporation.

In June, nine government departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, jointly released the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for Renewable Energy Development. According to the plan, five major offshore wind power bases will be built in Shandong Peninsula, Yangtze River Delta, southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong and Beibu Gulf.

Since early this year, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Fujian and Hainan provinces have released their implementation plans for offshore wind power development.

As climate change and energy issues are becoming more of a challenge, the offshore wind power industry has ushered in historic development opportunities, Securities Times said.

The Global Offshore Wind Alliance earlier said that offshore wind capacity will need to exceed 2000GW in 2050, from just over 60GW today, in order to limit global temperature rises of 1.5 degrees.

According to the Global Wind Energy Council, a Belgium-based international trade association, new offshore wind power installations in the world rose to 22.5GW in 2021 from 1.2GW in 2012, with an average annual growth rate of 20-30 percent.

GF Securities predicted China will basically keep pace with global offshore wind development, and post elastic growth between 2022 and 2025. By 2025, China’s new offshore wind power installations is expected to reach 16GW, a 32 percent compound growth rate from 2020.