China has the largest installed wind power capacity in the world. However, wind turbines with a total capacity of over 60 GW are expected to be decommissioned by the year 2030, which are mostly located in wind-rich areas. Old and inefficient wind turbines have impeded the efficiency of the wind energy industry. By conducting an economic analysis, the report shows that wind farm repowering projects are generally more profitable than greenfield projects because of lower investment costs, remarkably less land use, and higher annual equivalent utilization hours. In particular, a typical repowering project is expected to offer double-digit returns. In addition to that, repowering projects also offer greater environmental and climate benefits than greenfield projects, because they reduce the negative impacts on ecological environment and improve the efficiency in carbon emission reductions. While repowering wind farm has great potential, the developments of the industry face challenges such as limited absorption capacity of regional grid and complex bureaucratic procedures to start a project.

     To address those issues, the report suggests that local governments should issue detailed implementation guidelines and streamline the administrative procedures for repowering projects. The report also suggests that, given the market potential of wind farm repowering, financial institutions that are yet to develop the understanding and ability to evaluate repowering projects, should devote efforts to analyze the benefits of the projects and develop innovative financial products to support the projects under the framework of green finance taxonomies and PBC’s carbon emission reduction facility.

Please see attached files for the full report!