Powering of the Winter Olympics in Beijing

China branded the Winter Olympics 2022 in Beijing (5-20 February) as the first “green” Olympic games, including the first games to run on 100 % renewable electricity.

The mountain city Zhangjiakou in China’s Hebei province which hosted the skiing events of the games, has renewable energy capacity exceeding that of most countries in the world, and it has a pioneering “Zhangjiakou Green Electric Grid” built to deliver power from the city to the neighboring Beijing Olympic ‘green’ power supply.

According to the organizers, from the start of the preparations in mid-2019, to the end of the games now, the event required overall about 400gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity, This is equal to the annual electricity consumption of approximately 180,000 Chinese households. By the end of 2021, the installed capacity of wind and solar power in China was more than 600 gigawatts (GW), with both technologies crossing the 300GW mark last year. Including hydro power, a total of 2,480 terawatt hours (TWh) of renewable electricity was generated in 2021 in China. China’s plentiful renewable energy capacity could, therefore, easily cover the Olympics electricity use. 

The consumption at the venues during the actual games was around 160 GWh. The electricity came mainly from 11 wind- and solar power generation companies located in Zhangjiakou.

The participating athletes from Norway, where electrical supply is traditionally almost 100% by ‘green’ hydro power, may have been inspired by the amazing Chinese achievement with these “green” Olympic games, i.e. when becoming the most winning nation with 37 medals, (before ROC:32, Germany:27, Canada:26, USA:25, Japan:18, and so forth).

More info may be seen e.g. here .