A 200 mW offshore wind farm will be built in waters off Pingtan county, Pingtan Times reported on Oct 5, citing a source at a recent conference on wind power.

China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), a large State-owned corporation specializing in clean energy development, will be responsible for the project, which is undergoing the process of pre-construction investigation.

The offshore wind farm will occupy an area of 35.6 square kilometers to the north of Dalian Island and Xiaolian Island, and it will include 56 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 3.6 mW.

The engineers will also set up a 220 kV booster station on Dalian Island, and lay down 35 kV undersea cables for the transmission of electricity generated by wind power.

Experts around China say that Pingtan, a coastal island, boasts rich wind resources, and they also call for speeding up the preliminary work for the project.

Pingtan has more than 230 square meters of space where wind power can be used, which makes it one of the few wind power resources in China. It has an installed capacity of at least 1 million mW.

The county signed the Daliao offshore wind power farm deal with CGN on Dec 12 last year. In addition to the Dalian project, Pingtan also aims to build three more wind farms - off Caoyu Island, Haitan Island and Dongyang Island.

One wind power project has been in operation in Baiqing township on Haitan Island since February.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Niva Whyman