In 2015, China’s Goldwind Science & Technology installed 7,800 megawatts of wind power generation capacity, the most of any country, displacing General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) as the world’s top producer of wind turbines. GE fell to third place, behind Denmark’s Vestas. Now, Goldwind and other China-based wind turbine makers are looking for new markets as demand in China appears saturated.
Much of Goldwind’s business has come from its home province of Xinjiang, which now claims 26% of the area’s total power generation capacity, but competition from still-cheaper coal-fired generation is puts the company’s turbines at a disadvantage.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Goldwind CEO Wu Gang said:
Our competitors are not the foreign companies. Thermal power is competing with us. The competition between wind and fossil energy is far greater than the competition within the wind industry.
Inside China Goldwind’s competition for wind generation remains fierce with rivals Guodian, Ming Yang, Envision and CSIC. That’s mostly the result of protectionism among the country’s provinces, which dictates that local governments support local manufacturers in order to maintain jobs and provincial economic growth targets.
Goldwind took another step toward expanding outside its home country in May when its U.S. subsidiary signed a deal to acquire a 160-megawatt wind project in Texas that is destined to become the company’s largest U.S. wind project to date. The project will initially use 64 of the company’s 2.5-megawatt turbines initially, but the entire project is expected to total 300 megawatts.
The company is also looking to expand into more countries. Currently it sells its products in 17 countries, compared with Vestas’s presence in more than 30. The company trades in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and (in tiny numbers) over the counter in the United States. Its market cap, based on its Hong Kong listing, is about $3.9 billion.
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