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#Launch the "Thousands of Villages and Ten Thousand Towns Embracing Wind Power Initiative" to Explore New Village-Enterprise Cooperative Investment and Construction Models

#Promote the appropriate development of wind power in rural areas

China's rural areas have abundant and widely distributed wind energy resources. Making full use of the fragmented lands in rural areas and promoting the development and utilization of wind power locally according to local conditions is of great significance to boosting the collective economy of villages, helping the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of rural energy, and achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality.

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs jointly issued the “Notice on Organizing and Carrying out the “Thousand Towns and Ten Thousand Villages Harnessing the Wind” Campaign” (hereinafter referred to as the “Notice”), proposing that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, in rural areas of counties (cities, districts, and banners) with the necessary conditions, a number of wind power projects will be built for local utilization on a village by villagebasis. In principle, a maximum of 20 megawatts will be built per administrative village, exploring the formation of a new model of wind power investment and construction based on “village-enterprise cooperation” and a new mechanism of income distribution based on “joint construction and sharing,” promoting the construction of a new pattern of wind power development and utilization in which “villages have wind power, collectives increase revenue, and villagers benefit.”

How to systematically organize and implement the "Thousands of Towns and Villages Guiding the Wind" campaign? What policy support will be provided to better bring wind power to the countryside? The reporter conducted an interview.

Opening up new market space for wind power development and promoting rural revitalization across the board

China's wind power currently focuses on large-scale development in the northern, western, and northeastern regions. A relevant official from the Department of Renewable Energy and the National Energy Administration of China pointed out that as low-wind-speed power generation technologies gradually mature, on-site wind power development in the southeastern and central regions is becoming increasingly feasible and economical. If 1,000 villages meeting the requisite conditions were to be chosen as pilot sites annually and each were equipped with 20,000 kW of installed capacity, 20 million kW of wind power capacity could be added each year and the investment would total approximately 100 billion yuan. This would not only open up new market space for wind power development but also play a better role in promoting development, expanding investment, and maintaining stable growth.

Implementing the "Thousands of Villages and Towns Harnessing the Wind" campaign can also serve as a powerful driving force for promoting the rural energy revolution and an important carrier for assisting the comprehensive revitalization of the countryside. On the one hand, promoting the development of wind power in rural areas, achieving multi-energy complementation and deep integration with distributed photovoltaic and biomass power generation in rural areas, will help adjust the rural energy structure and assist in achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. On the other hand, the "Thousands of Villages and Towns Harnessing the Wind" campaign supports various investing entities and related village collectives to participate in the development, construction and operation of wind power projects in the "village-enterprise cooperation" model, and encourages the sharing of wind power project benefits through equity participation in land use rights and other methods in accordance with the law, which will help expand the channels for increasing the income and enabling the wealth of village collectives and farmers.

A "combination of policies" to improve the approval process, process land use in accordance with law, and ensure grid connection and consumption

In order to better organize and carry out the "Thousands of Towns and Villages Harness the Wind" campaign and to address the difficulties and bottlenecks in the previous scattered wind power development, the "Notice" pioneers ideas, innovates mechanisms, and mobilizes the enthusiasm and creativity of all parties.

Optimize approval procedures. The Notice encourages local areas to explore and pilot a registration system for wind power projects under the "1000 Towns and 10,000 Villages Harnessing the Wind Campaign", combine actual situations to provide "one-stop" services, and handle early procedures in a unified manner for projects developed in the same or neighboring administrative villages. For projects that do not affect sensitive areas such as soil and water conservation, environmental protection, vegetation restoration, or overlying minerals, the investment entity and the village collective can issue commitments, relevant authorities can issue supporting opinions, and then the relevant procedures can be handled more quickly in accordance with the law.

Obtain land use rights in accordance with the law. The notice proposes that, on the premise of conforming to the national spatial planning, not involving permanent basic farmland, ecological protection red lines, nature reserves, and national desertified land closure protection areas, fully utilizing rural scattered non-arable land, and handling the land use of "Thousand Villages and Ten Thousands Villages Controlling Wind Power" wind power projects in accordance with the law and regulations. Explore ways to obtain land use through leasing or other methods that do not occupy arable land, do not change the surface morphology, and do not change the land use. If it is necessary to occupy arable land, land use procedures should be handled in accordance with the law and regulations. Encourage the promotion and use of land-saving technologies and land-saving models to save land in a concentrated manner.

Various new space-saving technologies are being popularized, such as the "prestressed steel tubular wind turbine tower space-saving technology", similar to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Qin Haiyan, Secretary-General of the Wind Energy Professional Committee of the China Renewable Energy Society, gave an example, the four corners at the bottom of the tower actually occupy only 6 square meters of land, which saves about 27 square meters of land compared with the traditional tower; The four-point load-bearing distribution is adopted, and the bottom is suspended without affecting the mechanization of agricultural operations.

Guaranteeing grid access and consumption. The “Riding the Wind in Thousands of Towns and Villages” wind power project will realize guaranteed grid access by grid companies. It mainly aims to consume electricity nearby. The price of grid-connected electricity shall be executed in accordance with the grid-connected new energy electricity price policy of the year. It encourages participation in market-oriented transactions. The electricity quantity involved in market transactions does not participate in the apportionment of ancillary service fees.

In addition, the Notice encourages wind power and other clean energy sources, such as distributed photovoltaic, to form a multi-energy complementary comprehensive energy system in rural areas. Projects with remarkable implementation effects shall be incorporated into renewable energy development pilot demonstrations, such as the demonstration of microgrids in new energy in towns and villages, at an appropriate time. The Notice encourages innovation in investment and financing, and further increases support for wind power projects of "Millions of Villages and Towns Harnessing the Wind" in terms of financing, loans, etc.

The clear online electricity quantity and online electricity price policies provide certainty to the income of wind power projects, which gives enterprises a basis for their decisions. Qin Haiyan said that encouraging participation in the marketization transaction and the electricity quantity involved in the market transaction not sharing the expenses of auxiliary services can maximize the benefits of the wind power project for enterprises, village collectives, and the villagers.

Act locally and prioritize ecology. Implement one policy after its condition is ripe, and avoid over-enthusiasm.

The rural conditions in China vary widely, the "Notice" emphasizes that the organizing and implementing of the "Thousands of Villages Riding the Wind Action" should be based on local conditions and overall planning. With the wind energy resources and scattered idle land resources in rural areas as the basis, the overall economic and social development, ecological environmental protection, grid capacity and production and operation safety should be coordinated. The scale, projects and layout of local wind power development and utilization should be reasonably arranged. If it can be built, it should be built, and pilot projects should be carried out first. When the conditions are ripe, one will be implemented, not in a swarm, and not in a rush.

The relevant responsible people of the new energy and renewable energy department of the National Energy Administration said that each province, autonomous region and municipality should first conduct pilot projects in administrative villages with qualified conditions, and then popularize them in due time after summarizing experience according to the pilot project situation, instead of spreading them throughout the whole province at once. According to the provincial overall plan, each prefecture-level city should work out a detailed implementation plan by county (city, district, banner), making clear the project site layout, installed capacity, construction arrangement, land utilization, ecological and environmental protection and interest distribution mechanism, so as to promote the implementation in an orderly manner.

According to the Notification, the principles of village-enterprise partnership and benefitting the people shall be upheld. By forming a village-level partnership with enterprises, sharing the outcome and respecting the will of farmers, villagers' interests are truly ensured. "We encourage the exploration of neuen rural energy partnership models based on the sharing of land use rights and charitable posts within legal boundaries. This will lead to more collective income and tangible benefits for villagers," stated a relevant official from NEA's New Energy and Renewable Energy Department.

Uphold the principle of “ecological priority, integrated development”. The wind power projects of the “Thousand Villages and Towns Harness the Wind Action” should carry out environmental impact assessment in accordance with the law, and focus on the possible impact of the projects on the surrounding production, life and ecology on the basis of meeting the general technical standards for wind power and the requirements for ecological and environmental protection. It is encouraged to adopt land-saving, low-noise, high-efficiency and intelligent wind turbines and technologies suitable for rural environment, and realize coordinated and complementary development with rural energy and deep integration with rural industries.

At present, some wind power companies are actively exploring the integration of local characteristic cultural elements into project designs, which can not only promote organic combination of wind power development with rural landscapes, but also activate rural tourism resources, said Qin Haiyan.

According to the "Notice", the market mechanism will be improved next. Unreasonable investment costs must not be increased in the name of supporting industries or charging resource fees in disguise. Encourage and support private enterprises and private capital to actively participate in the "Thousands of Villages and Thousands of Villages Action". Provincial energy authorities, agricultural and rural departments and agencies dispatched by the National Energy Administration will strengthen project supervision, strengthen information disclosure, give full play to the role of social supervision, and effectively protect the legitimate and reasonable rights and interests of all parties. (Ding Yiting)

(Transferred from People's Daily)