The Environmental and Public Health Benefits of Offshore Wind Power Deployment in China

With the rapid decline in the levelized cost, offshore wind power offers a new option for the clean energy transition of the power sector in China’s coastal areas. Here, we develop a power system capacity expansion and operation optimization model to simulate the penetration of offshore wind power in China and quantify the associated health effects. We find that offshore wind power has great potential in mitigating the negative impacts of existing coal-fired power emissions. By deploying cost-competitive offshore wind power, it is projected that by 2050, offshore wind power would contribute 2% to 5% (306-654 TWh) of China’s total electricity generation, cumulatively reducing pollutants from the electricity sector by 3% and preventing 165,000 premature deaths. Notably, with the implementation of incentive policies, the scale of offshore wind power deployment expands two to three times, yielding public health benefits that far outweigh the costs of policy implementation.