China - Taiwan Wind turbines ready for battle

Two giant wind farms, whose construction is scheduled to begin in 2025, are expected to be built off the coast of Guangdong province. Their 2,700 wind turbines should produce more than 30% of France's electricity consumption. These wind farms, which extend up to 185 km from the coast and partially occupy the entrance to the Taiwan Strait, will give China the means to closely monitor the traffic. But this strategic project carries a high risk of acute confrontation, since the parks extend into Taiwan's exclusive economic zone, which China disputes. Imagination will be required to find a solution to bring it to a successful conclusion without any problems. Could it not be to associate Taiwan, which is already banking on wind power, with the project?

On October 20, 2022, on the eve of the 20e  Chinese Communist Party Congress, the 14e five-year plan for the energy development of Chaozhou City was unveiled. It provides for the opening of construction sites for the realization of two offshore wind farms with a total planned capacity of 43.3 GW by 2025. They will be located between 75 and 185 km off the city of Shantou, at the entrance to the Taiwan Strait1 .

This information, echoed by a multitude of daily newspapers in the West and sites on the Web, comes from a modest document, which presents the energy project of the city of Chaozhou (潮州), a prefecture of 2.7 million inhabitants in the far east of Guangdong province.
 
It is a plan that announces the opening of two huge construction sites within three years:
a 10.8 GW park on the Guangdong East Site 6,
a 32.5GW park on the Guangdong East Site 7.

No completion date is given. The wind farms are located in a strong wind region where, according to the Global Wind Energy Atlas, the average wind speed at 100 meters above sea level generally exceeds 9 meters per second, and can locally exceed 11 meters per second. This means that the turbines have a maximum output of about 4,000 hours per year, or 46% of the time, which is particularly high. With a nominal capacity of 43.3 GW and an average efficiency of at least 40%, these wind farms should produce more than 150 TWH in a year, or more than 30% of France's electricity consumption2 .
 
It is above all a strategic project that is being put forward. The 2,700 wind turbines that will be installed at the entrance to the Taiwan Strait will give China the means to closely monitor the traffic.
 
A bit of arithmetic shows how much space they will occupy and how they will be positioned.

At the Guangdong East-6 site, to reach the 10.8 gigawatt output, it will take no less than the combined output of 795 latest generation wind turbines delivering 13.6 megawatts. By current standards, each of these turbines requires a reserved area of one square kilometer. The wind farm will therefore occupy about 800 km2, or for example, a rectangle of 40 km long by 20 km wide.
Guangdong East-7 should cover at least 2,200 km2 , a rectangle 110 km long and 20 km wide.
These estimates are confirmed by the dimensions of the two parks announced in the plan:
Site 6 will be located off the coast of Shantou Harbor between 72 and 160 km from the coast,
Site 7, will extend from a point 75 km from the coast to 185 km3 .
 
The parks will be widely deployed at the entrance to the Taiwan Strait.
 

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There is nothing wrong with that. For the West, and in particular Europe, has adopted a flexible interpretation of the law of the sea. According to the jurisprudence, the implantation of a wind turbine is similar to the creation of an artificial island which constitutes a "simili-territory", around which a safety zone can be instituted which can go up to 500 meters in the respect of the navigation rails. However, since the wind turbines are located less than one kilometer from each other, the wind farm will be prohibited from navigation for safety reasons. It becomes, de facto, a "territorial" water that does not say its name.
French regulations are even stricter: any vessel less than 25 meters in overall length is allowed to circulate, except within a 50-meter radius; passenger vessels less than 50 meters in length may approach up to 500 meters from the periphery of the park. Vessels larger than 50 metres will be required to stay within 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) of the park.
This case law is accepted even though it is contrary to the spirit of the law of the sea, which states: "artificial islands, installations and structures do not have the status of islands. They have no territorial sea of their own and their presence has no bearing on the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone or the continental shelf."

Both projects, once completed, will be a major constraint to international navigation in the Strait, as commercial ships and warships are too large to pass through the wind farms. However, as stipulated by the Law of the Sea, they will not be allowed to force their way through, knowing that there is a high seas route of comparable navigational convenience to bypass Taiwan along the east coast.

It will therefore not be possible to victoriously oppose, in the name of freedom of passage, a virtuous deployment carried out in the framework of the fight against global warming. On these stretches, massive wind turbines will be installed with consequent bases or platforms. The installation of these plugs will allow to install on the wind turbines of the periphery automatic means of acquisition of information. Thus, a singular base should be constituted which will give China a permanent projection capacity to channel and control permanently the traffic of the strait.

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• A city in China is planning an offshore wind farm so big that it could power all of Norway, electreck, 22/10/2022
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• 14e five-year plan for energy development of Chaozhou, chaozhou.gov.cn/attachment/0/520/520868/3818482.pdf
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• Chinese City Plans 43.3 GW Offshore Wind Development, offshoreWIND.biz, 24/10/2022

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Box 1
Pratas or Dongsha Atoll

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There remains, however, another contentious issue and a source of great tension that arises from the presence in southeastern Taiwan of the island1 (1.8 km2 ) administered by Taiwan, which is crucial in determining the boundary between the exclusive economic zones. As described, extending up to 160 km and 185 km from Shantou, the parks will more or less encroach on the Taiwanese exclusive zone. Beijing seems to be ignoring this, which Taiwan can only fear.

For years, referring to old nautical charts, China has claimed the islands under the designation Dongsha Islands, which it says are administratively attached to Shanwei City. The systematic overflight of RoC airspace between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Atoll since early 2020 has been an obvious reminder of what Beijing considers its sovereignty2 .

There is a strong risk of confrontation. And since it takes time to reach agreement on singular matters, should Beijing not seek to avoid a conflict that could quickly prove threatening? By showing great imagination, bordering on utopia, a rational solution can be put forward. It finds its source in two observations:

Taiwan, whose share of renewable energy was only 5% in 2020, will have difficulty meeting its target of 20% clean energy by 2025. The constraints of its geography mean that it will only be able to achieve this by further developing the share of wind power in its energy mix, even though it is already a world leader in offshore wind power with 2.5 GW installed.

At the source of this production, there is a string of wind turbines installed at saturation point along the Strait. To produce the expected GW, it will be necessary to install new farms further offshore, towards the center of the Strait. With the same problems as those encountered by China.
 
China and Taiwan could agree on the realization of two complementary projects that would extend over most of the strait, which is considered a large inland lake. Since electricity is part of Taiwan's 220 billion import bill from China, it is conceivable that Taiwan could be guaranteed a supply from Chinese nuclear power plants in the event of a lack of wind. This deal would make the presence of Chinese wind turbines in Taiwan's exclusive economic zone acceptable.

Edouard Valensi, Asie21

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• Cf. Asie21 n° 141/2020-07&08 Taiwan - United States - China: Does China really intend to take the Dongsha Islands (Pratas)? Taiwan-US military cooperation strengthened and displayed
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• John Feng, As China Threatens War, Nearly Everyone in Taiwan Wants Peace: Poll, News week, 10/28/2022

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Box 2
Offshore wind power in China

Unquestionably, the cumulative capacity of Chinese offshore wind turbines of 24.9 GW, or 45% of the world's installed offshore capacity (54.9 GW), makes China the leading player at sea, compared to the UK's 13.6 GW and Germany's 7.7 GW. It is keeping pace, since in the first half of 2022, out of the 33 new offshore wind farms that came into service worldwide, 25 were in China.

However, offshore wind only accounts for 15% of China's wind power, as shown in the following table summarizing China's roadmap1 .

By 2050, if the development plans are realized, the total capacity, land and sea in operation is expected to reach 1,000 gigawatts, or 17% of the country's electricity demand. To realize this plan, 12 trillion yuan, or 1.7 trillion euros, will have been invested.

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Projection to 2030

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To produce 65 gigawatts, it will have been necessary to implant at sea approximately four thousand eight hundred wind turbines. Because they have to be located in windy regions, as shown on the map, they will be located in parks spread out between Shenzhen and Chuanlong, north of Shanghai.
 
For 1,400 km, the coastline will be transformed. If China and Taiwan agree, the whole strait could be one big park.

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China's place in the global wind energy market

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Initially, China was only marginally involved and had to acquire the knowledge it lacked about wind turbines and offshore wind technologies from abroad. Siemens Gamesa is a major contributor, and a technology transfer agreement was signed in 20212 , but it has not been its only technological partner. The Spanish company EDP Renewable and GE Renewable Energy, a world leader in giant blades, are also partners. And the French will be pleased and surprised to learn that the first Chinese deepwater wind farm, Dongtai Phase IV, 42 km off the coast, was built by the China Energy Investment Group and Electricité de France3 .
 
This technology does not evolve much, so the market is governed by price.  This is the point that China has played on, so that in 2022, thanks to the size of its domestic market, and therefore by playing on the number, China has produced powerful wind turbines at lower cost. The price of wind energy, which is the criterion of choice for the operator, will be minimized. In China, it is less than $500,000 per megawatt, while the rest of the world costs $1,000,000 per megawatt. China has the market. A strong market, since after the price of coal soars in 2021, the cost of wind power in China is in the same range as that of coal power.
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Edouard Valensi, Asie21

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(1) China Wind Energy Development Roadmap 2050
(2) Forging ahead in China: Siemens Gamesa signs MoU to license 11 MW Direct Drive offshore technology to China Energy United Power, Siemens, 05/11/2021
(3) China uses 1st offshore wind turbine with foreign investment, Global Times, 21/11/2021

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