Economic Sustainability Of Wind Power Generation System In China

In recent years,wind power,as a kind of clean energy,has developed rapidly with the support of policies,and its sustainability deserves attention.Sustainability in economics requires that the total amount of economic capital,including manufacture capital,human capital and natural capital,should not decline.Wind power exerts both economic impacts and environmental impacts.Economic performance is reflected in increasing output and job opportunities in the upstream industry,which may lead to the rise of manufacture capital and human capital.Environmental performance is reflected in the fact that the construction and operation of wind farms will cause the consumption of diesel and water as well as greenhouse gas emissions,but wind power has a greenhouse gas emission reduction effect compared with thermal power generation,which will cause the rise or fall of natural capital.Therefore,the impact of wind power system construction on total capital assets is uncertain,and the economic sustainability of wind power system is uncertain.We propose the question,is wind power system economically sustainable? How to promote the sustainable development of China’s wind power system?In this paper,the representative onshore and offshore wind power system in China are selected for economic sustainability analysis.Firstly,the life cycle assessment of onshore and offshore wind power systems is conducted,the inventory data of various capital assets required for inclusive wealth index accounting are obtained through life cycle inventory analysis,and the differences in the environmental impacts of onshore and offshore wind power systems are analyzed.Secondly,the forward-looking,backward-looking and present-looking shadow price methods are used to obtain the shadow prices of all kinds of capital assets required by inclusive wealth index accounting.Finally,the inclusive wealth index accounting and sensitivity analysis are conducted to judge the economic sustainability of the wind power system through the changes of the inclusive wealth index before and after the construction of the wind power system.Furthermore,based on the calculation results of the inclusive wealth index of the above representative onshore and offshore wind power systems,using the learning curve method,explore the long-term dynamic trend of the inclusive wealth index of the national onshore and offshore wind power systems,and analyze the long-term economic sustainability of country’s wind power systems.It is found that the life cycle characteristics of onshore and offshore wind power systems in China are different,and the pollution emission and energy consumption of onshore wind power system are higher than that of offshore wind power system.The construction of onshore and offshore wind power system will increase the manufacture capital,human capital and natural capital,and the construction of wind power systems will increase the total amount of inclusive wealth.Therefore,wind power system is economically sustainable.Further,through the analysis of the learning curve,the manufacture capital and human capital of a single wind power system in China decrease with the expansion of installed capacity,and natural capital rises slowly with the expansion of installed capacity.However,due to the continuous growth of country’s overall installed capacity,country’s wind power system inclusive wealth index is on the rise over time,and country’s wind power system has long-term economic sustainability.Based on the conclusions,this paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions to promote the sustainable management of wind power.