China wants more clean power to fuel its economic growth. Last week, it began construction of the country’s first 10 GW wind power farm in northern China’s windswept Gansu province .

As the world’s second-largest energy user, with 80% of it energy supplied by cheap but heavily polluting coal, China has set a goal of bringing its total wind power capacity to 100 GW by 2020 from the current 12 GW, part of an overall plan to generate 3% of total electricity from non-hydro renewable energy. The potential of wind power and the degree to which its growth is exceeding expectations has led Chinese officals to aim higher than their original goal of 30 GW by 2020.

To put China’s new goal of 100 GW into perspective, there are currently about 121 GW of installed wind power worldwide, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), with the United States, Germany and Spain the top three wind power nations, followed by China.

China’s most celebrated renewable power source is its Three Gorges dam, the 22.5 GW hyrdoelectric dam on the Yangtze River- the world’s largest hydro project.  Earlier this summer, authorities in Gansu touted plans for a “Three Gorges of Wind Power,” a project that would by itself nearly match the dam’s output.

One major issue remains, getting the power generated into grids. Wind facilities have outpaced the grid’s ability to accommodate the newly generated electricity, and, for now, much of the output of is going to waste. According to GWEC policy director, Qiao Liming, “of China’s 12.2 gigawatts of installed power in 2008, only 8.9 gigawatts made it into the electrical gird,” due in large part to the fact that the regions best suited for wind farms are so far removed from the grids.

Anyone surprised to see China so invested in renewables hasn’t been paying attention. Check out our posts on “world’s greenest superskyscraper,” or Pepsi’s “green plant,” and BFD, China’s first electric car.

[sources: Reuters, AFP]