Coal and gas-reliant HK Electric to dismantle city’s sole commercial wind turbine, claiming ‘mission complete’

2026-03-26 - 06:02

HK Electric is to dismantle the city’s only commercial-scale wind turbine on Lamma Island, claiming its mission is complete and that spare parts, or a suitable replacement, cannot be sourced. The HK Electric Lamma Winds turbine on Lamma Island. File photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP. According to a HK Electric press release on Tuesday, the turbine on Lamma Island “was designed to assess the performance and feasibility of local wind power, while also building operational know-how and raising public awareness of renewable energy. Having reached the end of its 20-year design life in February 2026, the turbine will be dismantled in the near future.” The electricity firm currently supplies power to Hong Kong Island and Lamma using an energy mix of 68 per cent natural gas and 32 per cent coal. Lamma power station. File photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP. Since it was activated in 2006, Lamma’s 71-metre Nordex N50 windmill has produced 16 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, HK Electric said. Meanwhile, Lamma’s nearby coal-fired power station has a daily generation capacity of 3,082.2 megawatts, or around 3.02 million kilowatt-hours. It means that, during its lifetime, the HK$15 million windmill project produced around the same amount of electricity as Lamma Power Station is capable of producing in 5.26 hours. HK Electric’s Lamma Winds turbine on Lamma Island. File photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP. HK Electric said on Tuesday that the turbine saved around 13 million kilograms of carbon emissions, the equivalent of what 560,000 trees can absorb in a year. However, it must now be decommissioned for public safety reasons, it said. “With most specialised components and spare parts for Lamma Winds no longer in production, HK Electric has explored a wide range of potential replacement and upgrade options. However, due to market availability and environment constraints of the existing site, no suitable commercial wind turbine models can be installed at the site on a like-for-like basis.” Educational information boards at the Lamma Winds site on Lamma Island, on March 26, 2026. Photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP. The company touted its efforts to promote “renewable energy, energy efficiency, and low‐carbon living to students” in the press release. However, the educational information boards at Lamma Winds were in a dilapidated state, with several unreadable when HKFP visited the site on Thursday. Educational information boards at the Lamma Winds site on Lamma Island, on March 26, 2026. Photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP. HK Electric said it is cooperating with the government to achieve “net-zero power generation” and carbon neutrality by 2050, highlight its investment in solar and its solar Feed-in Tariff Scheme, whereby 750 households have sold electricity back to the grid: “In 2025, the combined capacity of solar panels within HK Electric’s supply areas was about 22 times that of the Lamma Winds.” UN raises alarm The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also warned on Monday that the planet’s climate is more out of balance than at any time in history, with Earth gaining much more heat energy than it can release. According to a new WMO report, the record “energy imbalance” has been caused by emissions of warming gases like carbon dioxide and has resulted in oceans warming to new heights last year, as the ice caps melt. Heat is moving into the oceanic depths, affecting circulation and locking in consequences for thousands of years. Lamma power station. Photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP. It added that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are at their highest in at least two million years, owing to human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels. Hong Kong is set to see abnormally high temperatures in 2026, the Observatory said this week. HK Electric has twice declined HKFP’s request to join tours of Lamma’s power plant. The HK Electric Lamma Winds site on Lamma Island on March 26, 2026. Photo: Tom Grundy/HKFP. In 2022, the company vowed to open an offshore wind farm near Lamma by 2027. Sixteen years earlier, it proposed a farm consisting of 40 windmills. HKFP has reached out to the firm for comment.