Balancing benefits and burdens of wind power systems for achieving China's renewable energy goals:Insights from resource and environmental assessment

LI Yilin; LIU Mingkai

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-9605.2025.3.mtjjyj202503009

Abstract：As the global economy increasingly depends on the transformation of the energy landscape,driven by the deployment of wind power,this study examines the life-cycle environmental burdens of wind power systems and their substitution benefits compared with coal-fired power plants.Recognizing that renewable energy systems typically require higher initial investments but lower operational costs than fossil-based systems,the analysis considers a range of factors.These include nonrenewable energy consumption,greenhouse gas emissions,and additional environmental impacts such as industrial land use,water consumption,and emissions of PM2.5,SO2,NOx,and Hg that have been underexplored in prior research.In contrast to previous studies that either overlook critical supporting infrastructure or focus only on the physical plant structure,this study provides a comprehensive evaluation that includes all necessary equipment,materials,and services.Results for a typical plant in China show that advanced onshore wind power systems can lead to substantial reductions in nonrenewable energy use(9.2 MJ·(kW·h)-1)and greenhouse gas emissions(782.8 g CO2·(kW·h)-1).However,producing equivalent electricity from wind power systems requires more than two times the industrial land area and nearly one-third the industrial water usage compared to traditional coal-fired power plants.Furthermore,avoided emissions of SO2,Hg,PM2.5,and NOx per unit of electricity generated account for 60.6％-89.3％of the total air pollution emissions from supercritical coal-fired plants.By integrating data from 3,797 plant-specific cases and fixed-point wind energy information,this study scales up the findings from individual plants to a national level.The macro-level results highlightthe significant potential of wind power systems in alleviating various resource and environmental pressures,emphasizing the importance of designing targeted strategies to enhance wind power integration.