At the end of March 2012, the report released by BTM Consult Aps of Denmark showed that, by dint of the combined installed capacity of 8,945 MW (including those obtained through acquisition), China Longyuan Power was the second largest wind power operator in the world and would continue its rising trend.
"We’re very happy to have such a good performance. For us, the installed capacity is simply a figure. Our fundamental goal is to promote the healthy and sustainable development in a long run. In the face of the encouraging result, Xie Changjun, President of China Longyuan Power was still as cool as a cucumber. In the spirit of being pragmatic and working hard, Longyuan Power reached a new higher level in business development and achieved remarkable progress in 2011.
Speed up the corporate transformation and continuously optimize the layout of development
"During the "11th Five-Year Plan period, the wind power sector in our country witnessed a rapid growth. Statistics showed that, in late 2009, the Grid-connected wind generation capacity was 17,580MW, 31,070 MW in 2010 and rose to 45,051MW at the end of 2011. Such a high-speed expansion not only revealed the huge potential for growth within our domestic wind power industry, but also led to fierce and even chaotic competition.
An overwhelming majority of the wind power in the northeastern, northern and northwestern areas of China are not utilized effectively. Moreover, getting the project approval is becoming more and more difficult. Given this, China Longyuan Power resolutely decided to readjust its development strategy: accelerate the restructuring work and guarantee its leading position in the northeastern, northern and northwestern regions. Meanwhile, positive efforts will also be made to expand its business to those high-altitude areas, inland areas with low wind speed and southeastern coastal areas featuring favored conditions for Grid connection and strong capacity for consuming the wind power so as to constantly optimize the wind power distribution.
In 2011, Longyuan Power successfully established two wind power stations in the areas with high altitude and low wind speed, both of which were the first of its kind in this country and were put into operation in succession; In May last year, the first domestic large-scale low wind speed power station was put in place in Lai’an of Anhui Province by the company, with the installed capacity reaching 250MW at the end of the year. This played an active and exemplary role in facilitating the development and exploitation of the wind energy in China’s other inland areas where the wind speed is not so high. When the construction of Lai’an wind power station was finished, Jiang Shan, Mayor of Chuzhou City said: "Longyuan Power’s investment in Chuzhou has created ‘a vogue for developing wind power’ locally, filled the blank of wind power utilization in this province and will also positively affect the development of low wind speed power market in this country.
To further expand its development space and capture the high ground, Longyuan Power made positive efforts in promoting the "going out strategy. To this end, it set up the Longyuan (Canada) Renewable Energy Co., Ltd. and three project preparation offices respectively in South Africa, U.S.A and Hungary and actively carried out the preparatory work. On July 30 last year, the company linked an agreement to purchase a 100MW wind farm from the Canadian Merlin Eriksson Power Company. This move made it become China’s first State-owned electric power enterprise with overseas investment in new energy resources, thus constituting a landmark for its efforts in implementing the "going out strategy. Recently, the company actively participated in the second round of bidding for South African project in the first half of this year and strived for winning the bidding.
In addition, in late 2011, the adventurous and enterprising Longyuan people finished constructing the largest domestic offshore (intertidal) wind farm with the installed capacity of 131MW. This means that the company has mastered the core construction technologies including the single pile driving and got a number of patents related to the construction of offshore (intertidal) wind power station, such as "construction equipments for offshore (intertidal) wind farm, "construction equipments for steel pipe pile driving and "construction technology for steel pipe pile driving. Meanwhile, it took this opportunity to tailor-make a batch of special construction equipments and vessels for special operations, greatly lowering the project cost. Its 200-250MW annual construction ability made it capable of developing the offshore wind power in a large scale in future.
Longyuan Power also paid due attention to developing other new energy resources when making much headway in the wind power sector. The year 2011 saw its obvious progress in the photovoltaic industry. Three photovoltaic projects including the phase Iand IIin Golmud of Qinghai and that in Zhangye of Gansu went into operation, making its photovoltaic installed capacity total 70MW and forming a certain scale of development.
