China - Chinese wind power turns on western designers & suppliers

Apparently, wind power is one of the few technology growth areas where China has yet to gain significant market share. And, it looks as if there still plenty of time for Western businesses to crank out more Chinese sales. For example, Windtec, operating under the theme “Energy for Generations,” is a privately-owned and independent engineering company based in Austria which develops and licenses proprietary wind turbine systems. They also design and extensively supply wind turbine electrical systems to China.

Recently they reported a joint venture to fill more Chinese orders with American Superconductor Corporation. AMSC, by the way, is the world's principal vendor of high temperature superconductor (HTS) wire and large rotating superconductor machinery, and it is a world-leading supplier of dynamic reactive power grid stabilization products. As a result of the new orders for China, "American Superconductor will be serving a total of more than 2,500 megawatts (2.5 billion watts) of wind-generated electricity with its D-VAR(R) and PowerModule solutions, " Look below the fold for China-scale perspective on this: it's really impressive.

From the AMSC press release: “According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), China's installed base of wind generated electricity is expected to grow from 1,260 MW in 2005 to 2,000 MW by the end of 2006, a 59% annual growth rate. GWEC forecasts that the installed base will more than double to 4,750 MW over the next four years, and according to a Chinese State plan, it will reach 20,000 to 30,000 MW in 15 years”.