As the war in Iran threatens to choke off oil and gas supplies from the Persian Gulf, China is seizing the moment to extend its dominance in wind power.
Across China, hilltops are dotted with wind turbines, and long rows of them span many miles in western deserts. Ultrahigh-voltage power lines carry electricity thousands of miles to the energy-hungry factories along China’s coast.
Last year, China installed three times as much wind power capacity as the rest of the world combined, even as its turbine exports jumped. The global industry’s center of gravity has shifted decisively: All of the world’s six largest wind turbine manufacturers are Chinese, displacing once-dominant European firms and companies like General Electric.
The war has made China’s investments in wind look prescient. Its Asian neighbors, long reliant on Middle Eastern oil and gas, are struggling to secure fuel supplies. Meanwhile, China, with its massive reserves and modern electric grid, is better positioned to weather the energy crisis.
The contrast with the United States is stark. Under President Trump, energy policy has swung back toward oil and natural gas. In the past six weeks, the Trump administration has moved to spend nearly $2 billion reimbursing energy companies for abandoning plans to build offshore wind farms. This week, a leading renewable energy group said the administration has stalled more than 150 wind farm projects by delaying military reviews once considered routine.
The United States, the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, has the luxury of relying on fossil fuels. China, the largest importer, does not. It is moving to reduce its exposure, motivated by concerns over national security, economic stability and climate change.
With the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for oil and gas shipments, largely closed for two months, China’s top leaders have grown more emphatic. “Energy is a strategic issue in development — our pioneering development of wind power and solar technology has proved to be forward-looking,” Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, said in late March, three weeks after U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran began.
Unlike solar projects, which can be built quickly, wind power demands long-term planning and patience. Chinese officials have both in abundance.
Each wind turbine tower requires a large concrete foundation. Turbine installation depends on stretches of calm weather in windy locations. In China, large solar power farms can rise in less than a year, while wind projects can take up to three years, said Sebastian Meyer, a longtime renewable energy consultant who specializes in China.
Solar installations for homes, shopping malls and factories are even faster. Panels can be unboxed and installed almost immediately in China and other countries with few restrictions. Wind is different. “Wind projects can have a really long development time horizon compared to solar,” Mr. Meyer said.
China is now racing to build offshore wind turbines, which tend to catch steadier breezes and sit much closer to coastal power users than desert turbines do.
The push has faced little public resistance because of strong government backing. Even though local residents complain, they have little power to stop projects from moving forward.
“The noise from these turbines is quite loud,” said Wang Cuifen, who lives on a small farm outside Yancheng, near the base of towering turbines in a tidal zone. “They run nonstop from around 4 p.m. to 4 a.m., and it affects our rest.”
China’s early offshore projects were relatively simple in tidal areas or shallow waters near Weifang and Yancheng in northern coastal China. That is now changing.
Last month, China Huaneng Group, one of the country’s five main power generators, completed the country’s deepest offshore wind project. A new array of turbines sits 45 miles off the coast of Yantai in northern China, set in waters 180 feet deep.
In a speech in July, Mr. Xi urged China to “promote the orderly and well-regulated expansion of offshore wind power.”
Wind supplied 10 percent of China’s electricity last year, a share that is growing about one percentage point annually. Coal still accounts for just over half, but its share is slipping a couple of percentage points each year.
China is ramping up wind equipment exports in a hurry, unnerving competitors in the West and India. Exports of wind turbines and components to the European Union jumped 66 percent last year, while shipments to developing countries in China’s Belt and Road Initiative climbed 74 percent.
Chinese manufacturers, led by Envision Energy, are also gaining ground in India. Buoyed by tax incentives and government support, the country vies with the United States as the world’s second-largest wind market, after China. Envision now rivals Suzlon Energy, India’s main wind turbine manufacturer, on its home turf.
The standoff in Iran and the resulting spike in oil and natural gas prices have accelerated demand. Global wind turbine orders surged this spring, building on a 40 percent increase last year. Vietnam, for example, canceled plans for a major gas plant to focus instead on wind and solar.
Chinese manufacturers have driven the surge in many markets, both at home and in developing countries. Their main foreign rival, Denmark’s Vestas, has struggled to compete because China’s state-owned banks keep the renminbi weak against the euro, making Chinese wind turbines less expensive abroad.
The renminbi has strengthened slightly this year, but it remains 3 percent below its level two years ago, even though China’s trade surplus with the European Union has ballooned.
Two decades ago, the wind industry was dominated by non-Chinese manufacturers: Vestas, General Electric, Germany’s Enercon, Spain’s Gamesa and Suzlon.
That began to change in 2005 when Beijing issued a directive, known as Notice 1204, requiring China’s wind farms to source at least 70 percent of their equipment domestically. Beijing’s top economic planning agency warned that projects failing to meet this threshold would not be approved.
Vestas, General Electric, Gamesa and Suzlon responded by building factories in China. Gamesa, which then held a 30 percent market share, localized nearly all its production. By 2009, its turbines for China were assembled with 95 percent Chinese components.
The company trained more than 500 Chinese suppliers to manufacture components from Spanish designs. But those same companies soon began supplying emerging domestic rivals. China’s wind industry boomed, and Gamesa’s market share plummeted to 3 percent.
In 2009, the United States challenged China’s local-content requirements as a violation of its World Trade Organization commitments. China dropped the rule soon after.
But Beijing quickly tilted the field again, designating wind power as a strategic sector and favoring domestic firms. Chinese wind farms soon stopped buying from foreign manufacturers’ local factories. Over the next decade, those companies shuttered sales offices and turned their Chinese factories toward exports.
Beijing also poured subsidies into homegrown firms. When Ming Yang Smart Energy, now the world’s third-largest wind turbine manufacturer, went public in 2010, its prospectus said it “obtained land and other policy incentives from local governments.” The disclosures also detailed how these municipal governments bought turbines from only Ming Yang for their wind farms.
Abroad, Chinese manufacturers are encountering political resistance to their selling fully built turbines in Europe, although they have had more success selling components to European manufacturers. In March, the British government blocked Ming Yang from installing offshore wind turbines in British waters, citing national security concerns.
China’s Ministry of Commerce condemned the decision last month, saying it was “not conducive to local economic development or to improving the well-being of the British people.”
The European Union has opened an anti-subsidy investigation into imports from China’s state-controlled Goldwind Science & Technology Company, the world’s largest turbine maker. After preliminary findings pointed to subsidies that may violate trade rules, regulators may impose tariffs on Goldwind — a move that could prompt Chinese retaliation.
Ruoxin Zhang contributed research.
Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic.
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