China’s potential is borne out by its position in 2010’s league for capacity installed. Vestas is still number one, but Chinese manufacturers are littered throughout the top 10. In second place is Sinovel, which elbowed GE into third. Goldwind, Dongfang, Guodian are among those following up.
However, a large portion of the capacity installed by the Chinese was in China.
Out of the Chinese manufacturers in the top 10, only Goldwind is making a serious effort to break the all-important US market. It is developing the 106MW Shady Oaks project in Illinois, which it also owns, in an effort to build that all-important service record.
Others building smaller projects include Sany Electric and Guodian.
Will they drive western manufacturers out of the market? If you look beneath the surface, they have a number of obstacles to overcome before they reach this position.
Firstly most of the designs are bought off-the-shelf from European designers. Sinovel have used AMSC’s Windtec designs, Goldwind’s 1.5MW Shady Oaks turbine was acquired from Vensys, Dongfang and Mingyang's designs comefrom Garrad Hassan and Aerodyn respectively. The Guodian 1.5MW turbine (see pic) currently being installed in Texas was also designed by Aerodyn.
The big strength China has in its manufacturing base, but this is one industry where that is unlikely to stand. Government subsidies mean that most of the turbine's components will have to be manufactured in the country its being installed in. Nothing illustrates this better than Goldwind’s Shady Oaks project, which will use US-made towers and blades provided by Broadwind and LM respectively. In terms of manufacturing it will be a level playing field in the western markets, which leaves everything down to design and service record.
Interestingly, Sinovel seem to be taking a different track and have been targeting Africa and European nations such as Greece and Ireland. One wonders whether it will be easier to import turbines into those countries, although it has an assembly factory in Greece.
Maybe China’s strength will come down to whether the country can continue to build its wind capacity on such a massive scale.
