Addressing China’s Wind Power Underperformance

Abstract Wind power is pivotal to global decarbonization, and China leads in both installed capacity and recent expansion. Yet rapid capacity expansion has not translated into commensurate growth in usable electricity. Here we reconstruct generation for 10,032 wind farms in China spanning 1989-2022 and find that over 20% of technically available generation is not utilized. Decomposition reveals that while grid-connection delays and officially reported curtailment have declined by ~70% in the past decade, a residual component - soft curtailment - has emerged. This component represents unreported losses arising from system inflexibility and regulatory distortions, such as rigid dispatch, strict curtailment targets, and premature reporting of grid connection incentivized by feed-in tariff policies. Soft curtailment now dominates wind power underperformance in China, offsetting technological improvements expected to raise capacity factors by ~20%, leaving them largely unchanged overall. Absorbing the unrealized generation through storage at multiple timescales and matching to flexible loads could enable China to reach its 2060 wind generation target for carbon neutrality up to 13 years earlier and avoid over 20 Gt CO₂ emissions cumulatively.