New offshore wind turbines in Rudong get ready to whirl into action. [Photo/WeChat account: rudongfb]

In the first half of the current year, Rudong county – administered by Nantong city in East China's Jiangsu province – set a record for generating clean electricity.

The on-grid electricity generated by offshore wind power plants in the period hit 5.97 billion kilowatt-hours, which was close to last year's total amount.

It is projected that Rudong will supply more than 12 billion kWh of green electricity to the grid this year, 1.5 times the county's total social electricity consumption.

Rudong is one of China's coastal cities with the highest average levels of wind velocity. It has a wind power density measuring 357 watts per square meter annually, with a high number of available power-generating hours all year round.

In recent years, Rudong has prioritized the large-scale and concentrated development of its offshore wind power infrastructure. To date, 30 wind farms have been built with a total installed capacity of 5.6 million kilowatts – including wind parks on land – of which the installed capacity of the offshore wind power plants is 4.83 million kW, ranking it first in China.

Since 2020, several State-level wind power projects have started construction in Rudong, including the first offshore wind power plant to adopt flexible direct current transmission technology in Asia. The plant generates 3.3 billion kWh of electricity to State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power every year.

It's estimated that to date, more than 38 billion kWh of on-grid electricity has been generated by wind power plants in Rudong. As a result, about 13.3 million metric tons of standard coal has been saved, equivalent to reducing 46.5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions and 133,000 tons of sulfur dioxide emissions.