CORRECTED 13 OCTOBER 2020; SEE FULL TEXT

SCIENCE ADVANCES | RESEARCH ARTICLE

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES Copyright © 2020

The Authors, some
Offshore wind: An opportunity for cost-competitive rights reserved;
exclusive licensee
decarbonization of China’s energy economy American Association
for the Advancement
of Science. No claim to
Peter Sherman1, Xinyu Chen2,3*, Michael McElroy1,3* original U.S. Government
Works. Distributed
China has reduced growth in its emissions of greenhouse gases, partly attributable to major investments in on- under a Creative
shore wind. By comparison, investments in offshore wind have been minor, limited until recently largely by per- Commons Attribution
ceptions of cost. Assimilated meteorological data are used here to assess future offshore wind potential for China. NonCommercial
Analysis on a provincial basis indicates that the aggregate potential wind resource is 5.4 times larger than the License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
current coastal demand for power. Recent experiences with markets in both Europe and the United States sug-
gest that potential offshore resources in China could be exploited to cost-competitively provide 1148.3 TWh of
energy in a high-cost scenario, 6383.4 TWh in a low-cost option, equivalent to between 36 and 200% of the total
coastal energy demand after 2020. The analysis underscores notable benefits for offshore wind for China, with
prospects for major reductions in greenhouse emissions with ancillary benefits for air quality.

INTRODUCTION trend were to continue—as has been indicated in Coupled Model

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Under the Paris Agreement, the Chinese government pledged to sup- Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) projections under both
ply 20% of its primary energy consumption with renewables by 2030. medium- and high-emissions scenarios—then climate change might
Renewable resources are expected to provide approximately 40% of be expected to reduce the financial return on both current and future
its electricity generation by that time (1). China’s installed capacity investments in China’s onshore wind (13). Offshore wind offers an
for onshore wind has expanded substantially since the start of the alternative that might mitigate many of these issues and is already an
21st century, growing from 0.3 GW of cumulative wind power ca- important component in energy plans for a number of countries, no-
pacity in 2000 to roughly 162 GW in 2017 (2). The pace of this growth tably in Europe but with strong potential for the United States as well.
is unprecedented and has established China as the world leader in Currently, Europe is the largest investor in offshore wind, with the
onshore wind investment. While renewable energy represents a small United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, and Belgium
fraction of China’s current overall energy consumption [11% in 2016 ranking as five of the top six countries in terms of installed capacity
(3)], the trajectory of onshore wind has helped pave an important (14, 15). Close to 90% of the presently installed global capacity for
path to a potential future decarbonized—or decarbonizing—China. offshore wind is located in the North Sea and in neighboring regions
Despite hopeful prospects for China’s onshore wind, expectations of the Atlantic Ocean (15). There is important room though for
have been somewhat tempered over the past few years. There are a growth; cumulative installed capacity for offshore wind accounted for
number of issues associated with onshore wind in China that limit its just 3.7% of global investments in wind capacity in 2017 (15). These
utility. Curtailment of wind-generated electricity poses a major lim- numbers are likely to change, however, in the not-too-distant future.
itation for China’s onshore power production (4). The Brookings-­ Technological improvements have raised capacity factors (CFs) for
Tsinghua Center for Public Policy estimates that 16% of total potential offshore wind systems with decreases in both fixed and variable costs
wind generation was curtailed at a cost of more than $1.2 billion be- combined with installation of larger turbines that increase energy
tween 2010 and 2016 (3). In addition, China’s onshore wind market output (14). Costs have plummeted, highlighted by a decline of ap-
faces a further challenge of geographic imbalance; the greatest wind proximately 30% in mean installed costs between 2013 and 2018 (15).
resource is located far from the high-demand, population-dense re- The recent 800-MW offshore wind farm approved for Massachusetts
gions of the country. Provinces in the coastal zone consume approx- indicates that the trend exhibited in Europe is poised to extend to the
imately 80% of total national electricity, which is problematic given United States. That facility is projected to deliver power at a cost of
that the vast majority of the installed capacity for onshore wind is sep- $0.074 kWh−1 in its initial phase, decreasing later to $0.065 kWh−1,
arated by a distance of more than 1000 miles. Another area of poten- such that the investment is immediately competitive with current
tial concern relates to the declining temporal trend in land wind speeds sources fueled primarily by coal and natural gas (16).
over high-resource regions such as Inner Mongolia. This secular de- Given the technological improvements and the expansion of the
crease has been identified in reanalysis data (5), in climate models market beyond Europe, there is reason to believe that offshore wind
(6–9), and in observations (10, 11). It is suggested that some of the power may be economically viable also for China. China’s current
decline may be attributed to a weakening of the land-sea temperature offshore installed capacity is low, representing only 1.6% of the coun-
gradient associated with global climate change (12). If the declining try’s total commitment to wind power. The primary reason for China’s
small offshore wind investment is the perception of cost, i.e., that other
1
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
renewables are cheaper. However, recent expansion of offshore wind
02138, USA. 2State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and in Europe and the United States (discussed above) indicates that the
Technology, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Huazhong University economics of offshore wind has changed markedly recently and could
of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. 3John A. Paulson School of be cost-competitive now with present technologies. In addition, bar-
Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] (M.M.); xchen2019@ riers that have historically inhibited construction of offshore wind in
hust.edu.cn (X.C.) the United States may not pose comparable problems for China. For

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example, the Cape Wind Project in Massachusetts was subjected to water depth, ocean territories, environmental protection zones, and
objections and delays due in part to concerns that offshore turbines competing demands for the use of shipping lanes. Economic feasibil-
would obstruct scenic views of Nantucket Sound and introduce ob- ity is evaluated on the basis of current and projected costs, accounting
stacles that ferries would need to avoid. A major difference between for water depth, distance to shore, and wind quality. The hourly, sea-
China and the United States is that China’s coastline is largely gov- sonal, and interannual variability of offshore wind power is investigated
ernment property, implying that many of the objections to offshore using a 39-year record of assimilated hourly wind speeds. Implications
wind in the United States would not be applicable in China. In addi- for integrating offshore wind power into different provincial power
tion, shallow waters surrounding China’s coast extend much further systems are analyzed and discussed. The calculations provide a guide
offshore relative to the situation in the United States, allowing for a for investments in offshore wind that could be economically justified
larger area suitable for offshore turbines. In any event, we believe that for individual provinces. The analysis indicates that a large portion of
the issues that have delayed offshore wind development in the United the region’s current and future power demand could be provided
States are unlikely to be consequential in China. While extensive cost-effectively through investments in offshore wind.
discussions for China have focused on resource availability, eco-
nomics, and the utilization of onshore wind power (1–5, 17), little
attention has been devoted to the possibility of using offshore wind RESULTS
resources to decarbonize coastal energy systems. Lu et al. (18) as- China has abundant offshore wind resources
sessed the energy density for offshore wind power, but the economics CFs are calculated on the basis of MERRA-2 wind speeds over the
of offshore wind power were not addressed. Hong and Möller (19) full 39-year period using an adapted method for on- and offshore
offered important assessments of economic feasibility considering wind power. Geographical regions were filtered according to water
practical geographic constraints but did not account for the exclusion depths of less than 60 m with exclusion of environmentally protected

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of environmental protection zones, nor did it allow for water-depth areas and shipping lanes (discussed in Materials and Methods). Data
restrictions. In addition, consideration of economics and the prac- were restricted to regions within China’s Exclusive Economic Zone
ticalities of grid integration on a provincial level were not included. (EEZ) boundary (the environment under which a coastal state assumes
The aforementioned studies were based on the technical and eco- jurisdiction over its neighboring marine resources; see Materials and
nomic status of offshore wind turbine before 2013, when the typical Methods). Hourly mean values of CF and levelized cost of electricity
CF was 37%, levelized cost was above $0.20 kWh−1, and turbines (LCOE) over feasible locations for China’s offshore wind are displayed
could only be installed in shallow waters near shore. in Fig. 1 (the SD distribution is shown in fig. S1).
The objective of this paper is to explore the potential for offshore Notably, areas with the largest CFs do not overlap those with low
wind power for coastal provinces in China taking advantage of in- LCOE, implying that distance to shore and depth are important con-
sights based on the most recent technological and economic data. siderations for siting offshore locations. The economics of offshore
The offshore wind potential is assessed at a spatial resolution of 0.03° wind will be discussed further in the next subsection. Provincial juris-
by 0.03° on the basis of assimilated wind speeds derived from NASA’s dictions of ocean regions are delineated by the dashed blue boundaries.
MERRA-2 (Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and The greatest offshore wind resource is seen off the coast of Fujian, fol-
Applications, version 2) rescaled to a high-resolution bathymetry dataset lowed by opportunities identified with Zhejiang, Guangdong, Shanghai,
(see Materials and Methods for details). Data are filtered according to and Hainan. The energy generation potential for some of these large

Fig. 1. CFs and levelized costs of electricity. Spatial distributions of the mean (A) CF and (B) LCOE ($ kWh−1) over 1980–2018 for the filtered region. Coastal provinces
are colored gray. The dashed blue lines denote offshore wind areas that are in closest proximity to particular provinces. Note the different color bar limits in (A) and (B).

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resource regions is constrained primarily by EEZ boundaries. Fujian provinces could be supplied by offshore wind. The economic benefits
has one of the lowest potential offshore capacities among all of the may be even more extensive in the future with a 200% energy surplus
coastal provinces considered here (see Table 1) despite its extensive in the low-cost scenario, 116% with the higher cost option. Emphasiz-
coastal boundary; its waters are shared with Taiwan. Liaoning, by ing the extent to which this is an untapped resource, offshore wind
comparison, competes for wind resources with three other provinces comprises currently only 1.6% of China’s total wind power.
and with North Korea despite the fact that it has similar offshore ca-
pacity (Table 1). Notably, the mean wind resource over most of the Trends in offshore wind
coastal region is much greater than China’s onshore average [i.e., A number of studies have commented on the declining trend in
comparison of Fig. 1A with fig. 1a from (5)]. Given that the environ- China’s onshore wind speeds (5–11). If slowing wind trends were to
ments with optimal offshore wind resources are much closer to exist also for offshore, this could have a bearing on decisions as to
population-dense regions as compared with the most favorable loca- whether conditions favorable for China at present could become un-
tions for onshore facilities, this provides a compelling argument for favorable in the future, providing a possible negative incentive for
the viability of China’s offshore wind resources. future investments. Monthly CF trends are shown in Fig. 3 for the
studied region and for mainland China over the 39-year period cov-
Offshore wind will be cost-competitive by 2030, and may ered in this study. In contrast to the declining trend over much of the
already be high-resource onshore wind area of mainland China indicated in
From the above analysis, it is clear that China has a large physical the earlier studies, trends in offshore resources appear to have been
potential for offshore wind. The next step in our analysis is to assess more muted.
the economic costs associated with the development of offshore wind While there has been a slight decline in trends over much of the
and to compare related levelized costs with competing costs for cur- offshore region, environments further from the coast actually exhibit

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rent sources of power from coal and nuclear. Results of the cost anal- a slight positive bias. However, none of these trends for offshore wind
ysis are summarized in Fig. 2. power are statistically significant, except for the region off Fujian, a
We considered two cost scenarios for 2020: high ($3500 kW−1) circumstance that may be due to the unique fact that the region is
and low ($2000 kW−1), based on the range of results for offshore wind bordered to the east and west by land. Slowing wind speeds, therefore,
farms deployed in 2018 as indicated in the report published by the are not considered of compelling concern for the future of China’s
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) (2). These costs offshore wind market.
were adjusted according to water depth and distance from shore (see
the Materials and Methods for further details). We projected costs to Offshore wind variability and implications for grid flexibility
2030 as well, using the 30% LCOE decline predicted by Wiser et al. To illustrate the impact of integrating offshore wind power into local
(20). From the provincial breakdown, it is clear that the cost-efficient power systems, we summarize the temporal variations of power demand
capacity in the high-cost scenario is regionally variable. For example, and wind power at an hourly and daily scale in Fig. 4 for Guangdong
147.9 TWh could be supplied economically in Guangdong, while and Jiangsu provinces—the largest current offshore installations. The
opportunities in Jiangsu would be minimal (Table 2), despite the fact detailed variabilities of wind power at different time scales for all coastal
that the two provinces have comparable physical potentials (Table 1). provinces are summarized in fig. S2. Figure 4 (A and B) illustrates the
The variability is less of an issue in the low-cost scenario, where the daily variations of wind power and power demand throughout an
capacity of cost-competitive electricity exceeds demand in all nine of entire year. Note that offshore wind power exhibits relatively minor
the coastal provinces included in Table 2. The cost-competitive capacity seasonal variability, and the average CFs for offshore wind power in
that could be realized in this scenario is 200% larger than current summer months are close to 30% in both Guangdong and Jiangsu
overall peak demands for power in these provinces. Even in the high- provinces. In contrast, onshore wind power is highly seasonal in China,
cost scenario, 36% of the energy demand from these nine coastal concentrated mainly in winter (21). The average CF for onshore wind

Table 1. Provincial physical offshore potential relative to demand. Mean potentials for offshore capacity and energy generation for different provinces over
the studied period along with the demands for each province. The ratios of the corresponding quantities are also indicated. Provincial demand data were
retrieved from NBS (32).
Offshore capacity Offshore energy Ratio offshore energy/
Province Peak demand (GW) Energy demand (TWh)
(GW) (TWh) demand
Fujian 308.8 1389.8 52.1 196.9 7.1
Guangdong 499.3 1584.4 104.6 561.0 2.8
Guangxi 111.7 310.3 41.2 136.0 2.3
Hainan 377.3 1227.0 7.5 28.7 43.8
Hebei 122.4 397.2 62.8 326.5 1.2
Jiangsu 462.7 1543.7 101.6 545.9 2.8
Liaoning 369.5 1336.6 62.8 203.7 6.6
Shandong 697.0 2334.8 109.4 539.1 4.3
Zhejiang 440.5 1725.6 83.3 387.3 4.5

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Fig. 2. Offshore wind supply curves. Estimated levelized costs for supply of power from offshore facilities for 2020 (A, C, and E) and 2030 (B, D, and F). The data cover an
estimated low-cost (red line) and a potential higher-cost scenario (yellow line). The cost-competitive capacity is defined as the cumulative capacity that could be installed
at an LCOE of less than $0.08 kWh−1. For instance, Jiangsu could cost-competitively install roughly 30 GW of offshore wind with the high-cost scenario and roughly 200 GW
in the low-cost scenario assuming costs that would apply currently in 2020.

power in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, for example, amounts to trated in Fig. 4 (G and H). The correlation coefficients for Jiangsu are
only 17% in summer. positive for all seasons, with the highest values occurring in summer
The hourly variations of local power demand and offshore wind (0.18). The pattern indicates that offshore wind in Jiangsu tends to
power are illustrated in Fig. 4 (C and D) for a typical week in Jiangsu generate more power during peak hours. The correlation coefficients
and Guangdong provinces. Hourly variations of power demand for for Guangdong, in contrast, are highly seasonal: Offshore wind power
Guangdong are much greater than for Jiangsu. The fluctuations of is positively correlated with the daily variation of power demand in
offshore wind power for Guangdong are lower than the variations of summer (0.19), transitioning to negative in winter (−0.11). We note
power demand. The hour-to-hour ramping requirements in Guangdong that the hourly ramping and daily variations discussed above account
and Jiangsu before and after integrating ~25% of offshore wind power only for the “within province” power demand. Possible power exports
are illustrated in Fig. 4 (E and F). The hourly rampings of power de- and interprovincial exchanges were not considered here explicitly. To
mand in Jiangsu lie mainly within the range of ±5 GW hour−1; whereas optimally integrate a large contribution from offshore wind, it
the upward ramping for Guangdong peaks at 15 GW hour−1, mainly will be necessary to explore demand-side resources and storage tech-
during morning hours. After integrating ~25% of offshore wind power, nologies and to coordinate interprovincial transmission to provide
the largest upward ramping for Jiangsu province exceeds 10 GW hour−1; needed system flexibility for coastal provinces over the long run.
the upward ramping for Guangdong is affected to a lesser extent. Re-
quirements for downward ramping will be increased substantially af-
ter integration of offshore wind power. The increase in ramping rates DISCUSSION
poses additional requirements for system flexibility. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate China’s potential for
Correlation coefficients between hourly variations of power de- offshore wind. We used assimilated meteorological data from NASA’s
mand and wind power were calculated on a daily basis throughout MERRA-2 to investigate offshore wind potential, temporal variabil-
the year for all coastal provinces (with detailed provincial and seasonal ity, trends, and cost estimates over the period 1980–2018.
statistics summarized in table S3). The seasonal and annual means of The analysis reveals a number of key results, which could have im-
the daily correlation coefficients for Jiangsu and Guangdong are illus- portant implications for China’s future power system. First, China has

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Table 2. Economic potential for provinces relative to demand. The mean economic potential for offshore energy generation (E in TWh) for different
provinces over the studied period together with the ratio of economic energy generation to demand (R). The low- and high-cost scenarios are indicated for
both present day and for 2030. Note: E is the economic offshore energy generation for different provinces in TWh and R is the ratio of economic energy
generation to provincial demand.
Province Economic 2020 Economic 2030
Low cost High cost Low cost High cost
E R E R E R E R
Fujian 1341.1 6.8 388.9 2.0 1389.8 4.3 1341.1 4.2
Guangdong 902.9 1.6 147.9 0.3 1584.4 1.7 902.9 1.0
Guangxi 164.7 1.2 106.4 0.8 310.2 1.4 164.5 0.7
Hainan 368.3 12.8 60.6 2.1 1059.4 22.7 284.4 6.1
Hebei 316.6 1.0 0.0 0.0 397.2 0.7 316.6 0.6
Jiangsu 662.2 1.2 0.0 0.0 1119.7 1.3 576.1 0.6
Liaoning 853.0 4.2 344.7 1.7 1336.6 4.0 853.0 2.6
Shandong 1139.5 2.1 99.8 0.2 1932.5 2.2 1054.2 1.2
Zhejiang 635.1 1.6 0.0 0.0 1231.6 2.0 533.9 0.8
Total 6383.4 2.0 1148.3 0.4 10361.4 2.0 6026.7 1.2

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substantially under a warming climate. Third, China could currently
harness offshore wind to supply as much as 36% of the total energy de-
mand from the nine coastal provinces studied here at a cost-competitive
price (LCOE ≤ $0.08 kWh−1) even with the higher cost estimates as-
sumed earlier. Fourth, integrating an important contribution of power
from offshore sources poses little additional ramping requirements for
Guangdong, although it could increase flexibility requirements for
provinces such as Jiangsu. Efforts to improve power system flexibility
should be addressed to accommodate contributions for offshore wind
power in the future.
Despite these findings, there are a number of limitations that
should be acknowledged. First, we used MERRA-2 assimilated mete-
orological data to investigate variations in China’s offshore wind
potential. While reanalysis products can reflect the general spatio-
temporal variability, there may be issues of uncertainty for regions
where data are sparse (22). Having said that, we found results that
were consistent between MERRA-2 and ECMWF, which should mit-
igate any serious concerns associated with the use of MERRA-2 re-
analysis data. Second, we noted a statistically significant declining
trend for CFs off the coast of Fujian. Since this is a region with a large
wind resource, it will be important for future studies to evaluate how
Fujian’s potential for offshore wind might be expected to change in
the future under different climate scenarios. CMIP and large-ensemble
Fig. 3. Spatiotemporal trends in CF. Spatial distributions of CF trends (CF/
month) over the interval 1980–2018 for both onshore and offshore options. Trends
models could be used to investigate this issue. Third, since the eco-
that are significant at the 90th percentile are denoted with stippling. nomics are becoming increasingly favorable for offshore wind power
overall in China, it will be important to evaluate in detail how coastal
power systems can accommodate variable power sources. Since the
important sources of offshore wind, with cumulative potentials for cost for storage systems is currently decreasing at a rapid rate, invest-
power production that greatly exceed the current demand for some of ment in storage facilities could provide additional opportunities that
the most power-intensive provinces. Second, few significant declining might help mitigate these variations. Demand response initiatives
trends in offshore wind were detected over the studied period using could also be effective. Further, the coastal provinces are increasingly
either MERRA-2 or ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range interconnected. The national grid has invested in ultrahigh (1000 kV)
Weather Forecasts) assimilated meteorological data (see fig. S3). Con- voltage transmission lines, by which coastal provinces are tightly inter-
sidering the declining trends observed in both reanalysis and observa- connected. Cities such as Shanghai could import offshore wind power
tional data for onshore winds, this result is encouraging and would through neighboring provinces, substituting in part for local fossil-­
appear to imply that China’s offshore wind potential is unlikely to change fueled facilities. Variabilities in offshore wind power for different

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Fig. 4. Variation of wind power in the context of local power demand. (A) and (B) illustrate daily variation of power demand and wind power for Jiangsu and Guangdong
provinces; (C) and (D) summarize hourly variations of power demand and wind power in a typical week for Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces; (E) and (F) indicate the
frequency distribution of system ramping requirements with or without wind integration for Jiangsu and Guangdong, respectively. (G) and (H) indicate the seasonal and
annual average correlation coefficients between daily variations of power demand and offshore wind generation for Jiangsu and Guangdong, respectively.

provinces can be mitigated further with better coordination of inter- tions within China’s EEZ were considered. The EEZ is defined as the
provincial transmission. The present analysis sheds some light on region under which a coastal state assumes jurisdiction over marine
this. A follow-up analysis should explore the integration of future resources. The EEZ typically extends out to 200 nautical miles from
offshore wind into current power systems with detailed consider- shore, but differs when multiple countries lie within the 200–nautical
ation of temporal variations in both supply and demand. mile range, for instance, North Korea and China in the Yellow Sea.
China’s boundaries for the EEZ were taken from Marine Regions, a
database that aggregates information from a number of regional and
MATERIALS AND METHODS national providers (26). Another filter that was adopted considered
Data overview only offshore depths of less than or equal to 60 m. The offshore depth
The wind data used in this study were taken from MERRA-2 (23), a data used here were taken from the General Bathymetric Chart of
NASA reanalysis product publicly available in NASA’s Goddard Earth the Oceans One Minute Grid, a global bathymetric grid providing
Sciences Data and Information Services Center. This database defines data at a 1–arc min resolution (27). The MERRA-2 grid was rescaled
hourly wind speeds with a spatial resolution of 1/2° longitude by 2/3° to the high-resolution bathymetric data for appropriate integration
latitude from 1980 to present. Hourly wind speeds at 100 m were ex- of the two datasets. Note that we did not consider the potential for
trapolated from 10 to 50 m using the vertical profile of the power law floating turbines, a relatively new innovation in the offshore wind
described by Archer and Jacobson (24). The friction coefficient in the industry that eliminates the 60-m depth limitation. This should not
analysis was evaluated using wind speeds represented at 10 and 50 m have a great bearing on our results, however, given that the waters in
for each grid cell, as in Lu et al. (25). Wind power was computed on an China’s coastal environmental are shallow (<60 m) over much of the
hourly basis using the power curve for the MHI Vestas Offshore V164- EEZ, and costs for installation of floating technology are currently
8.0 MW wind turbine, a typical system used currently for offshore ap- elevated relative to those for fixed-bottom systems (28). Last, we re-
plications (specifications summarized in table S1). The ratio of hourly moved areas from each grid point according to environments desig-
power output to the nameplate capacity of turbines was used to com- nated as either “Special Marine Reserves” (environmentally protected
pute values of hourly CFs. regions) or shipping routes. Areas for the Special Marine Reserves are
To determine locations suitable for offshore wind in China, we defined in the National Marine Data and Information Service (29). SO2
filtered data spatially based on a number of criteria. First, only loca- emissions from MERRA-2 were used as a surrogate for the identification

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of shipping routes, and 20% of a cell’s area was removed for locations how depth and distance from shore influenced costs associated with
defined as emitting SO2 at a rate higher than 10−11 kg m−2 s−1. This substructure, foundation, infrastructure, engineering, and installation.
provides most likely an overestimate of the shipping impact; the The amortized cost, I(lat,lon), is computed then using the equation
spacing that we assumed to account for turbine-turbine interference
was 1.1 km (as discussed below), and ships should be readily able to ​(1 + r)​​  y​
​
I(lat, lon ) = AC(lat, lon ) × r × ​─ ​​ (3)
avoid obstructions imposed by this spacing. The area filtered accord- ​(1 + r)​​  y​ − 1
ing to these criteria is shown in fig. S4.
where AC(lat,lon) is the cost adjusted for depth and distance to shore,
Provincial installed capacity, power generation, and LCOE r is the interest rate (8%), and y is the assumed payback period (20 years).
estimates The LCOE at a given location is calculated according to
Musial et al. (30) estimate that the spacing appropriate to minimize I(lat, lon)
turbine-turbine interference for offshore wind is approximately 7 ×   
  ​​
​LCOE(lat, lon ) = ​────────────── (4)
​CF​  MEAN​​(lat, lon ) × 8760
7 rotor diameters (1.04 km2). The area for each latitude/longitude
grid cell was divided by this value to compute the number of turbines where CFMEAN(lat, lon) is the mean CF and 8760 is the number of hours
that could fit maximally into a given cell. Note that this spacing does in a year. These costs were projected to 2030, using the 30% LCOE me-
not account for the downstream wake effect, which is too small scale dian decrease based on the recommendations from Wiser et al. (20).
of a phenomenon to be modeled accurately using the MERRA-2 We arranged spatial LCOE values from smallest to largest, inte-
data. Given that the average downstream power loss is on the order grating on a province-by-province basis to obtain estimates of rele-
of 5% (31), the wake effect should not have a significant bearing on vant cost curves. These curves were compared (Fig. 4) with provincial
the present results. The potential installed capacity (in gigawatts) is costs for current power generation technologies (nuclear and coal-fired

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computed by multiplying the number of turbines in a cell by the tur- power plants). The nuclear LCOE estimates are taken from Xu et al.
bine power (8 MW in this case). (34), and coal-fired power plant estimates are from Shu-Chuan (35). We
The next step is to quantify the offshore power that could be sup- identified the LCOE for cost-competitive offshore wind as $0.08 kWh−1.
plied to individual provinces. To do this, we assumed that the off-
shore wind resource available over a given location in China’s EEZ SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
was under the jurisdiction of the country’s nearest province. These Supplementary material for this article is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/
content/full/6/8/eaax9571/DC1
provincial divisions, along with the mean and SD of the CF over the
Fig. S1. Spatial distribution of the CF standard deviation over 1980–2018 within China’s EEZ.
period 1980–2018, are indicated in Fig. 1. From the installed capacity Fig. S2. Fourier decomposition of offshore wind variability in different provinces.
and CF data, estimates of available energy E(lat,lon,t) (in kilowatt-­ Fig. S3. Spatial distributions of CF trends [CF month −1] over 1979–2018 for the filtered region
hours) were computed using the equation and onshore for ECMWF.
Fig. S4. Spatial distributions of the offshore wind constraints used in the filtering process.
Table S1. Maximum and minimum monthly energy potential (TWh) for each coastal province
​
E(lat, lon, t ) = CF(lat, lon, t ) × C(lat, lon ) × 8760​ (1)
studied here.
Table S2. Specifications for the MHI Vestas Offshore V164-8.0 MW turbines.
where C(lat,lon) represents the installed capacity at a given location, Table S3. Averaged daily correlation coefficients between hourly power demand and wind
CF(lat,lon,t) is the CF at the location, and 8760 defines the number generation for different provinces and seasons.
of hours in a year. The potential capacities and power yields are
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