China shut down a number of its wind turbines, as their idle capacity is only causing damage to the country's electrical grid.

While the United States spent a mere $34 billion, China has already splurged over $80 billion in 2014 alone to establish the country's new green energy. More than one in every three wind turbines across the world are installed in China.

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However, despite the huge number, China is still producing less electricity from wind compared with the US, implying that China has been overly saturated with turbines, which are already causing damage to the power grid - damage that could result in blackouts.

"The numbers are striking. They say China is building wind faster than it can be absorbed," said Justin Wu, head of the Asia-Pacific branch of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "Some policy has run ahead of other policy. Policy to incentivize to build [wind turbines] is working great, but policy to actually get the grid to uptake is falling behind."

Research published in Nature Energy pointed out that low turbine quality, connection problems, and preference for coal-fired power are reasons for the turbines' shortcomings.

According to China's National Energy Administration, since March, the government has reportedly stopped approving wind-power projects in the windiest parts of the country. These areas have previously been installed with about 71 gigawatts of wind turbines, that is, more than the rest of China combined, according to the Daily Caller.   

Furthermore, Beijing has ordered wind operators to stop wind turbine expansion as it is not only damaging the power grid but also costly. For instance, since most of the turbines in China were installed in the coastal provinces, infrastructures created and used to transmit the wind energy are more expensive than the price of generating electricity.

"If China can meet a goal of transmitting and distributing renewable energy in a reasonable way, then the idle-capacity issue will gradually be solved," said Nur Bekri, head of the National Energy Administration.

TagsWind Turbines, china, renewable energy, Green energy