A lack of specialized talent is hampering the speedy development of wind energy in China, Shi Dinghuan, chairman of the China Renewable Energy Society, told a gathering of the country's major wind players in Beijing over the weekend.

 

His words were echoed by other participants at the two-day China Wind Energy Development Strategy Forum, sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

 

China's wind power sector is developing rapidly with 500 MW of new wind power generating capacity commissioned last year, a jump of 254 percent from 2004. By the year 2020, the central government plans to boost total wind power capacity to 30,000 MW, an annual increase of roughly 2,000 MW over 15 years.

 

Human resources are vital to achieve this goal. According to experts, hundreds of thousands of people will be employed in the wind power industry in China by 2020, including tens of thousands of specialized workers. However, China has very few wind energy experts. Currently only one university in the country provides a four-year program dedicated to wind energy.

 

The school is the North China Electric Power University (NCEPU) and the program began this September with 30 students. "When those students leave the school four years from now, they will have lots of job opportunities," NCEPU president Liu Jizhen said.

 

Four-year programs in state-owned higher learning institutions are strictly controlled by the Ministry of Education (MOE). Last year, acting on a strong recommendation from the National Development & Reform Commission, the MOE allowed the NCEPU to go ahead in establishing the country's first four-year college program in Wind Power Engineering. The NCEPU, which has campuses both in Beijing and in neighboring Hebei Province, is the only university in China dedicated to power generation.

 

"Our program is high profile. We are not going to turn out ordinary technical workers," Liu Jizhen said. "Wind graduates will be able to carry out work related to the design, manufacture, and operation of wind turbines and plants, to do experimental research, and to contribute to investment decisions and project management. Our goal is to produce high-level specialists who are innovative and practical and have the potential to develop further."

 

According to president Liu, the NCEPU will gradually increase its enrollments of wind majors to 120 students a year by 2010. The university also plans to set up a national wind energy laboratory and an "Asia Wind Power Training Center."

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 25, 2006)