Offshore wind power in China contributing to regional power system upgrade and carbon neutrality

The whole world is urgently looking for alternative renewable energy resources to power its future economy with less carbon footprint. As one of the world’s largest energy consumers and CO₂ emitters, China is making all efforts to decarbonize its power systems (‘carbon neutrality by 2060’), with special attention to offshore wind power. However, the potential of offshore wind power generation and emissions mitigation is largely unknown, and the contribution to regional carbon neutrality needs to be further clarified. Here, we estimate the offshore wind resource, its generation potential, and the reduction of CO₂ emissions from offshore wind power to replace coal-fired power generation. We find that the abundant offshore wind energy resources in China can potentially generate enough electricity to fully power the country. However, current utilization of offshore wind energy is relatively limited, supplying less than 1% of local electricity needs. With the development of offshore wind farms, this share could be over 20 times higher in 2050 than that at present. The total emissions reduction would increase from 11.9 Tg CO₂-eq yr^–1 in 2019 to 294.3 Tg CO₂-eq yr^–1 in 2050 because of reduced coal use, significantly contributing to emissions mitigation along the coastal provinces. Our results highlight the important role of offshore wind power in upgrading the regional energy system and achieving carbon neutrality of China, and it will also give imputes to a cleaner electricity system worldwide. Future studies are encouraged to further explore the feasibility of offshore wind farm construction.